


And Weigh Our Sorrow With Our Comfort

by laurie_ky



Series: A Sea Change Series [2]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Bonding, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Child Abuse, Depression, M/M, Shamanism, post Sentinel series, sentinel and guide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:13:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurie_ky/pseuds/laurie_ky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written by Laurie</p><p>Blair knows he hasn't been at his best for the last three months, after he and Jim returned from their trip to Ireland. When he begins sleepwalking again, he tries to handle the feelings of depression and anger he's been denying after destroying his birthright, but without much success. Blair's dreams hold the answer but in order to gain control again of his life, he and Jim must make a journey both in the physical world and on the spirit plane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Detailed Summary of <i>A Sea Change</i>

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Sea Change](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31432) by [laurie_ky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurie_ky/pseuds/laurie_ky). 



> Written for Sentinel Big Bang 2011. Beta'ed by the lovely and generous Bluewolf, and enriched by Stoneygirl's lovely haunting banner and additional art work, which is embedded in the story. Additional thanks goes to my cheerleaders, Bluewolf and Lilacs_Rose. Thank you so much, Ladies.
> 
>  
> 
> A Sea Change is very long, over 100, 000 words so I've included a detailed summary for those readers who would like to refresh their memories. Go to Chapter Two (Denial) to begin _And Weigh Our Sorrow With Our Comfort_.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Short Summary of _A Sea Change_
> 
>  
> 
> Blair is the son of a selkie, and Jim takes his seal skin, in the form of a choker, and hides it from him. Alex steals the choker from Jim, and sexually abuses Blair. Later, after being freed from her, Blair leaves Jim, thinking Jim will never forgive him for the release of his dissertation outing Jim as a sentinel. When Blair returns from the sea, he can't stop thinking about going back, and has to make a choice between his land life with Jim, or living in the sea and searching for other selkies.
> 
> He chooses Jim and burns his seal skin choker and dies. Jim brings him back from the spirit world when their spirit guides merge. They return to Cascade from Ireland, but whether or not Blair is going to be all right is not clear.

  
[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/000611bt/)   


 

  
[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)   


  
**A Detailed Summary of _A Sea Change_**   


 

 **  
_Part One_   
**

In _A Sea Change,_ a Cascade cop, who is taking a surfing vacation on the Washington coast before transferring to Major Crime from Vice, meets an interesting young man at a small ocean-side bar. Jim Ellison invites this beautiful, long-haired hippie to his motel room, but asks that no names be exchanged for this one night stand. Jim enjoys sex with men, but his long-term plans include marriage to a woman, although he's not seeing anyone. He sees no future in getting to know his male partners.

The young man turns him down, but they share a steamy kiss before parting. The next day while surfing in the afternoon, Jim loses his footing and his board and is swept out to sea by a riptide.

He's close to becoming seriously hypothermic and drowning, when a blue-eyed seal assists him to shore. In Jim's confused state he almost thinks the seal is communicating with him mentally, wanting to know his name. As he attempts to stumble out of the sea, he is helped by a good samaritan who drives him to his motel room. When Jim becomes less hypothermic and dazed, he realizes his benefactor has learned Jim's name and is the young man he met in the bar.

They have great sex, but Jim makes it plain afterwards that he doesn't want to see his nameless lover again. He does offer to drive both of them back to the beach to get the boy's vehicle, but when Jim comes out of the bathroom he's alone.

Jim tries to find the young man to make sure he got to his vehicle safely, but finds he has disappeared. Back in the motel room, Jim realizes that the boy has left a leather choker he wore around his neck. Curious, he wraps it around his own wrist, and leaves a message and his phone number at the motel office in case the boy wants it back.

It soothes him to wear the choker, and he decides to keep it with him.

He makes one more attempt to find this boy, going back to the bar where he first met him. He doesn't find him, but he does learn his name from the bartender - Blair.

 **  
_Part Two_   
**

After Jim's transfer to Major Crime and being partnered with Jack Pendergrast, Jim decides to track Blair Sandburg down, breaking his own rule regarding his male sex partners. He's also dating Carolyn Plummer, head of Forensics. When Blair shows up in Cascade, looking for him, he invites Blair to stay with him for a week. They spend that time getting to know each other and having sex, and Blair considers getting his PH.D at Rainier in Anthropology.

Jim's been having trouble with his senses being erratic; sometimes they are too strong and hyperactive and he frequently feels overwhelmed. He's discovered that wearing the choker, hidden on his ankle, helps control his wild senses; when Blair asks if he found a leather necklace in the motel room they'd shared, Jim lies to Blair, telling him no. He rationalizes his behavior by telling himself that he needs that choker, and if Blair leaves Cascade with it then Jim will be at the mercy of his senses.

Carolyn observes Jim with Blair and while she doesn't know that Jim and Blair have been lovers, she does see Blair as a rival for Jim's attention. Jim has to make a choice to keep his relationship with Carolyn or start an out of the closet one with Blair. He also decides to drop the attitude he carried with him when he transferred from Vice and under Captain Simon Banks' encouragement he starts becoming more of a team player.

Jim chooses Carolyn and Blair tries to leave Cascade. He doesn't get far before feeling compelled to return. The research he's done on Jim's sensory problems has shown him that Jim is a sentinel and that he's become Jim's guide. He theorizes that they've developed a bond and that was why he felt sick and miserable the further from Jim he traveled.

He agrees to stay in Cascade and be Jim's guide, do his research at Rainier, but refuses Jim's offer to be clandestine lovers for a while longer until Jim and Carolyn decide to be exclusive. He tells Jim that he won't live with him any longer, and asks Jim to treat him physically only as a friend.

Jim knows he's hurt Blair, but marriage is something he's always wanted. He watches Blair walk down the beach, seeking comfort from the sight of the sea, and wonders if the wild theories he sometimes indulges in, courtesy of stories told to him by his Irish great-grandmother, could be true.

No, he decides. Selkies and their seal skins were only real in old stories.

 

 **  
_Part Three_   
**

Several years later, Jim's short marriage to Carolyn has ended in divorce, and since Blair's warehouse apartment was destroyed in a fire, he's moved into the loft with Jim. Jim is willing for them to return to being lovers as long as Blair keeps the relationship secret, since he hopes to once again marry a woman. Blair won't agree to that condition, but neither he nor Jim bring up how Jim touches him much more than a friend would.

Lately, however, Jim finds himself irritated with Blair, and he doesn't know why. He refuses to listen as Blair tries to explain about a woman he's met, threatening to evict Blair from his truck and make him walk home. He knows he's being unfair to Blair, but he can't be around him so he goes camping alone. Upon his return, he sees his spirit animal, a black jaguar, and another spirit animal, a spotted jaguar. When he meets the woman Blair has been helping with her senses, he realizes the strange animal spirit belongs to her, and he suspects that she might be both another sentinel and the criminal responsible for a string of robberies. He makes Blair move out of the loft, after having a dream-vision where the wolf he shot morphs into Blair.

His irritated mood extends to his coworkers, and Captain Banks sends him home. When Blair and Megan Connor join him at the loft, they are shocked to see he has basically moved his own belongings out of his home.

Alex Barnes is unmasked as the criminal who has stolen deadly nerve gas from Rainier, and she kidnaps Blair as her hostage. The FBI have a theory that Blair is actually Alex's accomplice, based partly on Jim's own report of how Blair bungled a flashlight when Jim, Megan, and Blair had seen Alex on a fire escape, thus allowing her to get away. Jim refutes this, but the evidence he has to show that Blair is a victim is based on his senses and he would have to out himself as a sentinel to present it. Jim has a vision that leads him to Alex's whereabouts in Sierra Verde, Mexico, and he, Simon Banks, and Megan Connor fly there in pursuit.

In Sierra Verde, they find the body of Alex's lover and partner-in-crime in the morgue, and take shelter in a local Catholic church. Jim has a dream about Alex meeting with him on the beach and in a strange state leaves the church and meets her where he dreamed she was waiting. They begin to have sex, until Blair comes upon them after he escaped from where Alex was keeping him. Alex shoots Blair in the shoulder, and he crawls into the sea and starts to drown. She escapes, having provided this distraction to Jim, who's come back to his right mind and intends to take her into custody.

Jim rescues Blair, resuscitates him, and carries him from the beach to get help. At the hospital, after Blair recovers from surgery and his near drowning, Jim intends to tell Blair the truth about taking his choker. However, he hasn't been able to find it and upon playing back his memories recalls that Alex took it off his ankle while he was in a lust-filled daze on the beach. Before he can admit this, Simon asks Blair if Jim has given his "necklace" back, remarking that he didn't know Jim concerned himself with Blair's jewelry.

Puzzled, Blair asks Jim privately what Simon meant, and Jim confesses the truth. Blair, shocked and distraught, makes statements leading Jim to once again consider that Blair is a selkie. Blair tells Jim to leave him alone for now, and Jim, Megan, and Simon join with CIA agents and local Mexican law enforcement to recover the nerve gas.

In the jungle, Jim, still under the influence of feelings he is having trouble resisting, sabotages the ambush to arrest Alex and recover the nerve gas; Alex gets away in a helicopter. Jim deduces that it's leaking fuel and will have to land soon. Jim knows that Alex still has the deadly poison. He and Megan go after Alex, and Simon goes back to Sierra Verde to get additional help. The other forces with them are chasing after the drug lord who they think took the nerve gas canister. Jim and Incacha, the Chopec shaman who acted as Jim's mentor and temporary guide when the army sent Jim to the Peruvian rainforest years ago, meet on the spirit plane during Jim's dream, and Incacha advises him how to proceed and protect himself from Alex.

He leaves Megan, and finds Alex at the Temple of the Sentinels. Blair is there, held captive. Alex sexually abuses Blair, and Jim is helpless to stop her, being under the influence of a powerful potion Alex has brewed from mystical directions only she can decipher that are written on the temple walls.

Between following Incacha's wisdom and the mental urgings of Blair, who is gagged, Jim resists Alex's influence and places her under arrest. She has overdosed on the potion and is catatonic. For an instant, when he looks at Blair, still bound, he thinks he sees a dark bulky shape superimposed on his friend.

Jim comes to a crucial inner decision during this trip. He wants an open relationship with Blair, having almost lost him. There are troubles that must be sorted out, such as Blair's carelessness in keeping Jim's and Alex's names in his research, which gave Alex blackmail material to ensure Blair's cooperation with her abducting him. Also, Blair's still a person of interest to the FBI, and Jim's duplicity in stealing Blair's choker and lying about it are issues. Blair's not talking about what Alex forced him to do for her sexually.

Blair said that he had been compelled to find Alex, but Alex had told Jim before Jim subdued her that she didn't feel bonded to Blair. Blair takes his choker back from Alex's unconscious body, and wraps it around his ankle, following Jim's example of how to wear it secretly. Jim doesn't understand how Blair found her in the jungle terrain, when he's seen Blair get lost on a regular basis. He speculates again on the possibility Blair is a selkie and found Alex because she had stolen his skin. Selkies cannot leave the people who hold their skins, his granny had told him.

Jim and Blair take some tentative first steps to resuming a sexual relationship, but Blair decides to stay for a while at the temple to document it for his dissertation. He asks Jim to contact Blair's research partner to join him. Jim hears their reinforcements tramping through the jungle; Alex cannot be roused, although Blair tries every guide trick he knows.

Jim agrees to give Blair some space, but feels hopeful that he and Blair will be able to begin a new life together when Blair returns to Cascade.

 **Part Four**

Jim is openly affectionate with Blair when he picks him up at the airport several weeks later, at least until the FBI halts them before they can leave. Jim's knee jerk reaction is to stop touching Blair, and when he does, Blair perceives Jim's actions as rejection and proof that Jim is not ready for an openly gay relationship.

Hurt, Blair complies with the FBI's demands that he accompany them since he is a person of interest in the Barnes nerve gas case. Jim follows them to FBI headquarters in Seattle and stays in his truck, using techniques Blair taught him to avoid zoning, as he listens to Blair being interrogated.

The agents question Blair off and on all night long but he leaves out part of his story, not wanting to tell about the sexual abuse he suffered at Alex Barnes' hands. There is not enough proof to arrest him as an accomplice, but he is told to remain available, since he is still a person of interest. Jim tries to convince Blair to tell them everything, but Blair refuses.

Blair still has doubts that Jim can handle a gay relationship but agrees to date him, starting with a pancake breakfast on the way home.

Jim passes on several chances to tell Simon that he's seeing Blair, finding it more difficult than he thought to out himself, even to an old friend. He does tell Megan Connor, finding it easier to tell her of his feelings.

He comes home to find Blair dancing to “Earth Music,” looking wild and untamed, and consensual sex ensues.

Jim and Megan, and most of Major Crime, are assigned a case tracking down who is threatening a union leader. It turns out to be the “Iceman,” a hit-man Jim had taken down once before. He escaped from a German prison, and plans are made to catch him.

Blair finishes his dissertation, and joins up with Jim for a change of pace, leaving his mother at the loft while she visits for a few days.

Later, at the station, Blair is acting strangely, upset at a phone call that had something to do with his mother, and he asks Jim for privacy to talk to Naomi when they return to the loft.

The next morning, Jim learns that Blair's research naming him a sentinel was sent to the press. Angry, he refuses to listen to Blair's explanation, and avoids him, feeling betrayed. The FBI take Blair back to Seattle to question him again, and Jim has strange dreams, in which Blair is a selkie and changed to his seal form.

The Iceman attacks the station and Megan and Simon are hurt.

Jim has been thinking about his reaction to being outed as a sentinel and decides that he needs to talk to Blair, get his side of the story. After Blair was almost shot when Megan and Simon were attacked, Jim realized that he didn't want to lose Blair, even if right now he is very angry with him.

Blair, returned from Seattle, goes on TV to name himself a fraud, so that Jim will be protected and the attention from the media end so that the Iceman can be apprehended. The FBI run a bluff to put pressure on Blair, leaking to a TV station that Blair will be arrested for being an accomplice to Alex Barnes.

Jim looks for Blair, but he's disappeared. His backpack and clothes are found hidden on a beach, and it is assumed that he's committed suicide from the stress and guilt he experienced.

Jim refuses to believe that Blair would kill himself and instead stops fighting against the idea that Blair is a selkie. He and Naomi go down to the beach where Blair's belongings were found and he coaxes Naomi into telling the truth of how Blair was conceived and what the midwife did the day he was born.

Jim and Naomi try to call Blair back from the sea, but neither dripping tears or blood into the ocean calls him to shore. Naomi is convinced that Blair won't return, the pull of being a selkie being too strong to overcome, but Jim won't give up. For weeks he tries to find Blair and sometimes senses him in the ocean.

Finally he masters his fear of riding his board out into the ocean and leaves the safety of the land. He then calls Blair mentally, sensing he's in the area, and drips seven drops of his blood into the sea.

Blair comes to his board in his seal form and Jim convinces him to return to land, apologizing for not working things out with him. Blair agrees and follows Jim as he catches a wave back to shore. He transforms and they make love on the deserted beach. Blair returns to the loft and makes amends for worrying his friends, but he is restless and often returns to the ocean.

Jim goes with him, providing a mental anchor, for when Blair is in his seal form he is living in the moment; it is freeing but without a connection to his land life, he would drift away.

Blair has not found any other selkies, although he constantly searches while he is in the ocean. He finally tells the truth about his kidnapping to the FBI and is cleared of suspicion. Jim gets the hang of being out in a gay relationship. Blair tries to do damage control after trashing his career with his press conference and makes arrangements with the university about a grievance, since they released his work without his permission. Naomi visits but leaves again, sad and unable to face Blair anymore. She is convinced that she will lose him to the sea; the midwife who took Blair's newborn selkie skin from his body told Naomi that if Blair ever wore his seal skin into the ocean for a lengthy period he would not come back to his life on land.

Blair fights the compulsion he feels to return to the sea in order to stay with Jim, but he begins to sleep walk from the stress. Jim and Blair go to Ireland, where Blair can search for selkies near his birthplace, as he has become obsessed with finding his father's people.

Their Irish vacation involves Jim surfing, Blair spending a lot of time in the ocean searching for traces of other selkies, going to pubs for stories and music, and Blair doing some folktale research on selkies with the locals. Blair's sleepwalking continues to get worse and Jim puts an alarm on their door.

The night before they are to leave to go back to Cascade, Blair meditates by a campfire alone, having asked Jim for some privacy. Jim is at their cottage a half mile away, keeping tabs on Blair, when he's jolted by an intense feeling of pain and he realizes something is wrong with Blair. He runs to the beach and finds Blair has burnt his seal skin and is dying.

Jim remembers the words of his shaman friend and finds Blair on the spirit plane, the dead body of his selkie soul on the beach. He recognizes Blair in the guise of a wolf, Blair's spirit guide, who is leaving this plane for one the living cannot travel. Jim, also in his animal spirit's form of a black jaguar, bonds with Blair on the spirit plane and revives him.

Blair grieves for his lost selkie life, but made the decision to live with Jim. He wouldn't have been able to withstand the pull of the sea for much longer.

They leave and fly back to Cascade, but Blair never answered Jim's question of whether he was going to be okay before they left that Irish beach.

 

  
[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)   



	2. Denial

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/000611bt/)

**And Weigh Our Sorrow With Our Comfort**

.

 **Chapter One**

  


 _Denial_

“This is a strange repose, to be asleep  
With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,  
And yet so fast asleep.”

 _The Tempest_ , Shakespeare.

 

Joy burst from my heart as I plunged down into the glorious depths of the ocean, scattering a school of fish. They were right to dart away, swimming for their lives. Even though I was me, and not a seal, I caught fish like a seal and enjoyed a good meal of sushi. I muscled after them intent on catching my dinner and enjoying the sheer primal nature of being a selkie.

A selkie who was bound still, I realized, when I was forced into surfacing after sensing _her_ blood in the water, her voice a commanding presence in my head. I had no choice, she called to me and I had to answer. I had thought I was free. Jim had promised me that I would not be under anyone's control ever again but he was gone. He'd left me to the sea, and I had taken refuge within my other life.

I had lost myself in my selkie world, hiding from the memories of Jim's rejection. Living as I did, perfectly in the present, I also avoided thinking about the grief and pain my mother surely experienced upon learning I'd drowned or had followed my father's path.

I transformed as I approached the strand, my selkie skin shrinking to the scrap I wore about my neck, tumbling with the waves until I gained my footing and waded ashore. Alex stood there, beautiful and deadly, her eyes lost to madness.

"Guide. I see you now for what you are. You are strange, and you dream of the sea, but you are exiled from living amongst the sea-folk. And to think that once I held your leash and didn't realize it. Still, you served me, and I've missed your talented fingers and tongue, my whore. I'm coming to take you again. You will be my servant once more, and not just here in the dream world."

She smiled at me, cold and haughty, and pointed to the sand. "Crawl to me, guide."

Helpless to resist, I fell to my knees and did as she said. When I'd reached her, she bent down and took the choker from around my neck and handed it to me.

"Wrap it around my wrist, guide." I did so, hating myself for not being able to snatch it from her and return to the safety of the sea.

She lifted up the pretty blue sundress she wore, until I could see the hem of her lacy panties. "Kiss me here, lick me, tongue me until I come. You remember how, don't you? I gave you plenty of practice."

"Jim," I whispered.

"Ellison can't protect you. He cast you off, remember? I'm claiming you, and this time I'll keep you. Now pleasure your sentinel."

I tried to stop myself from doing as she asked. The compulsion was impossible to avoid, though, and I set my mouth on her skin, kissing and licking her inner thighs until I had reached her panties, and I smelled her arousal, the dampened cloth heavy with the scent. I breathed against them, drew them aside and touched her with my tongue the way she had compelled me to when last she held my choker, and felt her shivers as she drew closer to her orgasm.

She came, holding my face tight against her, like she had when I'd been her thrall, when she'd stolen my seal skin and used my mouth at her whim.

When I finished my task, Alex pushed me away from her and began to laugh,

“The time of waiting ends soon. For now, since you have pleased me, you may take your skin back, selkie. Return to the ocean, hide among the reefs if you wish. You will come to me again when I make the offering and give my blood to the sea. I found your mind, dreamer, and I will do so again. I order you to tell Ellison nothing of me. In the temple, I offered to share you with him and he refused. So be it.”

She unwrapped the choker from her wrist and held it out to me. I staggered to my feet and reached for it, but she refused to give it to me, letting it dangle from her hand. “Selkie. Guide. Soon I will be strong enough to reach your mind when you are conscious. You cannot bar me. Now, open your mouth.”

Despairingly, hopelessly, I parted my lips and sucked the finger she let rest on my tongue. She whispered instructions to me, filthy suggestions that made me feel sick.

I flinched when she withdrew her finger and stared at me resentfully, then abruptly shoved my choker at me.

“Next time, guide, I'm going to fuck you with my fingers. You'll like it, won't you? You love it when Ellison fucks you. Too bad that I have to go now.” She ran a hand teasingly down my chest, flicking a nipple, stopping to trace the outline of the bullet scar from where she'd shot me. She smiled coldly and continued her journey down my body until she cupped my balls.

She squeezed me, hard, and I felt involuntary tears swell in my eyes. She let go and pushed me away from her.

“You won't remember this dream, pretty Blair. Now run back to the ocean, selkie.” With shaking hands I refastened my choker around my neck, turned and plunged into the waves, the cold water cleansing her touch from my skin.

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/00062ww0/)

 

I woke up on the beach. I'd burrowed into the sand, and I rolled out of the nest I'd made, quickly curling into as small a shape as I could, my arms around my legs. It was dawn, and I was dressed only in a pair of boxers. I supposed it wasn't as cold a morning as usual because I wasn't hypothermic, but I still was freezing, the breeze from the ocean an arctic kiss on my bare skin. I was gritty from having lain down, and I stood up, brushing the sand from my skin.  
I had no memory of coming here, and this time Jim, on an overnight stakeout, hadn't been home to stop me from sleepwalking.

Oh, God, I was sleepwalking again. I hadn't done that since we'd left Ireland. Jim and I had thought after I'd destroyed my selkie skin that I wouldn't feel the pull of the ocean anymore.

I hadn't. The severing I'd done had almost killed me, but it had ended the cravings to stay in the ocean, transformed into my birthright shape.

Sure, the last three months hadn't been much of a picnic, and I recognized that in some ways, although I was still very much alive, I was in mourning for my own death.

But I'd been coping. Back when I'd been sleepwalking a lot, I'd researched the crap out of why adults do it, and yeah, I'd fit the emotional stress criteria when I'd done it before, but I was doing okay now. My part-time consultant job at the PD had its ups and downs, but I liked what I did, especially since it let me work with Jim again. I'd felt a little dicey when my diss committee and I had hammered out the terms for my finishing my degree, but that had been months ago, and the writing was going well enough. Most importantly, Jim and I were not fighting. I knew he worried about me, although he tried to hide it, but we were solid with each other. I figured if he still felt over protective and all anxious, it was a holdover from me dying, but I expected that would fade away.

So why was I freezing my ass off on a public beach? What the hell had triggered this episode? I had sleepwalked for a couple of miles, and Holy Krishna, Jim's anxiety level was going to flip right into the red.

Thinking of walking reminded me that I'd better start heading for home. Too bad I hadn't worn sweat pants to bed last night.

I started trudging through the sand back up to the parking lot, crossing my fingers that I'd make it back to the loft without cutting my feet or having to explain why I was roaming the streets in my boxers.

At least they weren't my Micky Mouse ones.

I picked up the pace when I hit the pavement; with some luck, I'd be home, showered, and downing a pot of coffee before Jim walked in the door.

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)

 

Maybe if Cascade hadn't followed the typical December weather pattern of cold rain pouring down, and only ten minutes into my journey home, too; maybe if I hadn't walked right into some trash cans left on the curb; maybe if Cascade's finest hadn't picked Wharf Street to patrol this morning; maybe if I could have talked to them without stuttering and shaking from the cold, I wouldn't have ended up in the ER.

I sat on a gurney, handcuffed and wrapped up in a blanket, me and Officer Davis waiting for the results of my blood test to come back so he could decide to arrest me for PI, or to let me go.

According to the doctor, I'd been in the beginning stages of hypothermia when I'd failed to recognize the obstacles in front of me and tried to walk right over almost four-foot tall city trash cans.

Davis was a grown up version of Opie, all freckles and cowlicks, younger than me and not too long out of the Academy. It was boring for him to be stuck in the ER, and he'd gotten kind of chatty. He'd told me privately that if it had been up to him, after my story checked out about actually being a PD consultant, he'd have taken me home after the doc had said I was basically okay. His partner, though, was more of a by the book guy and skeptical about the sleepwalking story.

Sergeant Michaels was in his late forties, with a gut that hung over his belt. He was a stranger to me, but he'd heard my name associated with Major Crime. It didn't buy me any slack, though. He told me flat-out, once I was warm enough to make sense out of what was happening, that if he could prove that I was stoned, he'd arrest me for public intoxication. He wasn't mean about it, just explained matter-of-factly that drug problems needed to be dealt with and not kept secret. He said he was doing me a favor by making me face reality, if the tests proved I'd been using.  
I wasn't worried about the drug test. I just wanted things to hurry up before Jim showed up in the ER. I didn't want to explain while only wearing boxers and a blanket that I was back to my old bad habits. I hoped the hospital would let me borrow some scrubs and the cops would run me home.

Michaels had taken off to the cafeteria in search of breakfast and coffee, leaving Davis to babysit me. I'd learned more than I'd ever wanted to know about the guy's taste in movies, his political views, and how he'd run the PD if he was the Chief of Police before a nurse informed him that the results of the tests cleared me.

I was too tired to react much, and it wasn't like there was any suspense for me – I knew I was clean – but the doctor who signed my aftercare papers told me that I might want to consult a sleep specialist. Davis uncuffed me, and after I returned from using the john, I learned that he'd left.

A nurse ushered me out of the ER examination room I'd been waiting in, but stopped at the nurse's station, and handed me a phone.

I thought again about trying to borrow some scrubs and slippers, but I didn't have any money for a taxi or the bus and no jacket. I guessed they wouldn't let me keep the blanket, either.

I called Jim.

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)

 

Jim waited until we were in the truck and fastening seat belts before starting the inquisition. I pulled the jacket he'd brought me a little tighter, and tried not to be annoyed at his questions. He was treating me as if I'd been a witness, a victim, and a perp all rolled into one.

I knew he was just being methodical, using his training to figure out all the data he could, and if it had been him who'd done something so troubling as to walk several miles almost naked in chilly weather, not aware of any dangers, then yeah, I'd be trying to pull out of him every iota of information I could.

Because I loved him. Because I would want to help him.

I sighed. I should stop acting like a hostile witness and actually cooperate, instead of giving him attitude.

“Jim, man, I'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help, and I'm being a putz about it. But can we wait until we're home to discuss this? I want a hot shower and some tea, and then we'll tackle this new wrinkle, okay?”

Jim nodded and patted my leg, then started the truck and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. He frowned when he saw me huddling into the jacket, and flipped the heat on high.

“I'm not trying to push you, Chief. But, damn, I thought we had this licked. And we'll need to stop to buy an alarm system. Hmm. I wonder if Radio Shack carries something similar to what we used in the cottage back in Ireland.”

“Drop me off first, Jim.”

Jim shot me one of _those_ looks, and I knew he wouldn't.

“Blair, you might fall asleep before I get back. We can't take that risk.”

I figuratively bit my tongue. It wouldn't help to snap at Jim just because I didn't like being coddled. He was making sense, and I would have to suck it up, no matter that I hated slipping back into the way things had been before leaving Ireland.

“Yeah, okay, but as long as we're shopping, I'm going to treat myself.”

I wanted something else to think about, so I started telling Jim the pros and cons of the different headphones I'd been researching to buy, and he let me rattle on.

I settled my hand on his thigh, and felt a measure of calm returning.

My sleepwalking last night must have been a fluke. It probably wouldn't happen ever again.

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/00063f95/)

 

The last wisps of my dream faded, replaced by a siren next to my ear. I struggled to consciousness, knowing it was time to wake up, and the last impression lifted of fleeing, swimming away.

I tried to turn off the alarm, but instead found my hand touching wood. Fuck. I wasn't in bed, and that racket wasn't my alarm clock.

I opened my eyes to find I was at the front door and Jim was standing close by, but not within arm's reach. Sometimes I'd get confused if he tried to shake me awake and I'd try to hit him. We'd learned it was better to either let the alarm wake me, or try to gently guide me back to bed.

Jim looked tired, and no wonder – it was the second time tonight that I'd sleepwalked. That made seven times this week alone, and it was only Thursday.

He shut off the alarm and shifted his stance, asking me wordlessly if I wanted comfort.

I went to him and let his strong arms anchor me. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. God, I know this is exhausting for you.”

He brushed his lips along my temple. “No more than for you, Chief. C'mon, it's too early to be up. Let's try to get a little more sleep.”

I followed him back to bed, but I just lay there, listening to his breathing and trying to figure out what I should do.

Plan A – ignore my sleepwalking and hope it went away on its own. Obviously that one hadn't worked very well so far.

Plan B – See a sleep specialist. I wasn't very enthused about turning to Western medicine, but Jim wanted me to try it. I thought it would be a waste of time since I didn't want to take any drugs, and the other recommendations would involve therapy, to get at the root of any emotional distress I was experiencing.

Right. I couldn't be honest with a therapist since they'd think I was crazy when I told them I was a selkie who'd destroyed his own seal coat, and if Jim tried to vouch for me, they'd say we were sharing a fixed delusion. I was dropping Plan B down to Plan Z, unless I was recommend a therapist comfortable with the supernatural.

Plan C – do some serious mediation. I thought I was doing okay in my life, but something must be wrong. Maybe I was hiding it from my conscious mind.

Plan D – There was no plan D.

Frustrated, I got out of bed and went downstairs, and made a large mug of Valerian tea. I sipped it slowly and tried to recreate my muzzy thoughts as I had come awake. At least I'd remembered more about what I'd been dreaming about than I had on previous sleepwalking occasions. The other times were a complete blank.

I closed my eyes and cleared my mind, taking myself back to that point when the alarm had shrilled. I'd been on a beach and I'd been desperate to get away, so I'd turned to the sea and dove into the breakers to change my form.

Huh. So I was still a selkie in my dreams. But what was I running from?

And what did that tell me? That I missed being a selkie? Not news. That I felt safer in the ocean than I did on land? Apparently. Why? What was in my dreams that made the sea a safer refuge than being on land with Jim?

Was my subconscious having second thoughts about choosing Jim over the sea?

Sighing, I went to the balcony doors and watched dawn lighten the sky, sipping the last of my tea.

If meditation didn't help me figure out what was wrong, then I'd try hypnosis for Plan D. Maybe mom could recommend someone who wouldn't freak out at what they'd learn.

I'd burned my selkie skin, cut my ties to the sea and my father's people. I didn't regret it, but I'd thought that after my initial burst of grief I would adjust. I expected to miss being a selkie, but I'd been sure I'd be able to cope, and that I'd be happy with Jim.

I loved Jim. I wanted to live with him, be his lover and guide him, but it was time to admit to myself that something was off – I really wasn't very happy any more.

 

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)


	3. Anger

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/000611bt/)

 

Chapter Two

  


  
_Anger_   


“Come;  
I'll manacle thy neck and feet together:  
Sea-water shalt thou drink;”

 _The Tempest_ , Shakespeare.

 

Jim swore under his breath and visibly tried to calm himself, his hands throttling the steering wheel, probably a substitute for my neck.

“Just stop it, Blair. You got a beef, fine, we'll discuss it. But this constant sniping and sulking you're indulging in isn't helping. So what's the problem now?”

I felt ashamed that a part of me wanted to keep pushing Jim, insisting on finding fault with most of the things he did these days, but as I'd done for the last three months since I'd stopped denying I had problems, I ignored my sense of what was fair and went for the adrenaline rush of an impending fight.

I knew acting this way was wrong, and God knows, meditation hadn't helped me stop what I was doing. I knew I was being too touchy, too quick to accuse Jim and my friends of doing things to deliberately bother me.  
It was no wonder most of my friends had taken to avoiding me. Poor Jim, stuck with me, taking the brunt of my temper.

“I'm saying that you not letting me drive the truck shows you don't trust me. Man, it's just another example of how, you know, you don't trust me, and I'm tired of it.”

“And maybe it doesn't have anything to do with that, _maybe_ I just _enjoy_ driving the truck. But if it will keep you from bitching at me for the rest of the day, guess what? I'm fine with letting you drive home. That's fair, isn't it? I drive to Northwest Marina, we question our witness, develop some leads, and then you can take the wheel.”

“Oh, sure, and have you backseat driving the entire time? No thanks.” I slid back into sulking, and almost hating myself for doing it.

“So, you're angry that I'm not letting you drive the truck and at the same time, angry because I said you could drive it. How logical does that sound, Professor Sandburg?”

I refused to answer him and he just sighed, both of us waiting for the Tenth Street Bridge to open back up for traffic.  
I watched, hoping Jim noticed how thoroughly I was ignoring him, as the two halves of the bridge slowly lowered down until they had re-joined again, a safe passageway over the Little Swinomish river.

It was corny, but seeing the two halves of the bridge connected again made me think of Jim and me, and what we were to each other. He was my sentinel, for God's sake. For months he'd bent over backwards trying to not jump down my throat when anger overtook me. He'd hold me at night, tell me things would be all right and I could sleep without fear of leaving my bed to do God knows what.

I'd caved and gone to a sleep specialist, and had tried the dratted pills for the last two weeks, but they hadn't helped. Nothing helped. I still sleepwalked most nights and my fading memories were always the same, fleeing from danger into the sea.

It was time to tell Jim the truth: it terrified me to think that my life would always be this way, that I wasn't in control, not of my actions nor of my emotions.

The losses I'd brought upon myself were fueling my anger. I knew this. I wasn't stupid, and I'd known I was experiencing the stages of grief once I'd admitted to myself that I _was_ still grieving. I'd never transform to a selkie again, or share that joy with my father's people even if I could still find them.

Never underestimate the ability to conceal the truth from yourself. In my case, it took three months of hiding my head in the sand before I had my epiphany – _Blair, you're still fucked up._

I'd thought I could handle it by myself, that I'd get over it like getting over the flu. Unpleasant, but then things improve and you don't feel like death warmed over anymore.

Nothing was getting better. I'd done journaling, meditation, anger management, and stress coping skills.

I'd shied away from telling Jim about how much I missed being a selkie, though. I'd wanted to protect him against any feelings of guilt he might develop, since when it came down to losing my land life or my sea life, I'd picked him.

I'd still choose him.

Traffic slowly started up again, and in a few minutes we'd be at the marina road and then we'd be too busy for any sort of discussion about us.

It was time to man-up and apologize. I could do that much, at least, and tell Jim I wanted to talk to him when we got home.  
“Hey-” I hadn't spoken two words before Jim held up his hand. The truck came to a halt, and I realized that the twenty cars or so before us were at a dead stop. An old black car, looked like a Ford Escort, was in front of the line and parked at an angle in the road. Maybe the car had engine trouble, but the driver hadn't made it easy for anybody to get past him since this bridge was old and narrow.

Jim frowned, listening, and I tensed. He was in cop-mode, and I got out my cell phone, waiting for his orders.

“Oh, Christ, Chief, call for backup.” Jim had unbuckled his seat belt and was barreling out of the truck. I did the same, dialing 911 as I followed after him. Jim was using the cover of the other cars, bending low, gun held ready in his hand. The dispatcher answered, and I gave our location and officer needs assistance code.

Up ahead I saw a man next to the guard rails, skinny and disheveled looking. He was holding a child, a little dark-haired mite, and for a crazy moment I wondered why he had picked now to show the kid what the river looked like. Then I saw the gun that the man was holding in his hand, his other arm holding the child up to his chest like a shield. Crouched down by his legs was another little kid, a girl judging from the pink jacket she was wearing. She and the boy were crying, the girl sobbing out that Daddy was scaring her.

Time seemed to freeze, like a snapshot, and I was aware of the gray clouds, the sound of boats, cars honking, a screaming pink-haired woman dressed in biking clothes standing near the gunman, a bicycle abandoned on the road, and the salt tang of the tidal river. The next second the spell broke and I relayed to the dispatcher the nature of the emergency, emphasizing that we needed rescue boats as well as hostage negation, SWAT, and medical assistance.

The woman had stopped screaming and was sobbing out words; apparently she'd been coming from the other way and had stopped to see if the man had needed any help when he'd skidded his car sideways.

She was begging the man to put down his gun, to let her have the kids. The man kept the gun close to his body but he pointed it at her, yelling, “Shut up, bitch!”

Keeping down, I moved up to the third car back and motioned for the passenger and driver to get down. I couldn't see anybody in the first and second cars, and I guessed they'd already figured out to duck down out of sight in case the gunman decided to start shooting.

Jim was almost to the man's own car, and the reason Jim hadn't spoken yet became clear as I watched him ease open the back seat and take out a sleeping toddler and lay the child down, and then he stretched inside and brought out an infant. He laid the baby down next to the toddler. When I reached them he gave me a quick pat on the arm and handed me the baby after I'd gotten the toddler girl over my shoulder.

I took off with them, the baby making sounds that I knew meant he was winding up to let out a yowl of dismay, moving as quietly and covertly as I could, till I judged I was far enough away from the gunman. I pulled open a car door and dumped the kids on the lap of the grandmotherly woman sitting in the passenger seat. This last indignity was too much for the baby and he started to howl.

She started spluttering, obviously confused by now having a lapful of babies, but stopped when I told her, “Gunman, get them out of here.” A fierce expression replaced the bewilderment and she nodded. I rushed back to Jim, hearing the baby's wail getting fainter as the woman got them safely off the bridge.

I crept around the back of the second car, heart racing, listening to Jim talking to the man, explaining that he was a cop and trying to convince the gunman into putting down his weapon. Jim asked the woman to move back, but the guy was losing whatever hold on sanity he'd shown so far, and he started screaming at her not to move or he'd shoot her. He started calling her Cynthia, and babbling about how everything was her fault, all her fault, and she was a stupid cunt and he'd teach her and her brats a lesson.

Jim couldn't shoot the man without probably hitting the boy. I readied myself to rush in and grab the kids when Jim either talked the guy into surrendering or shot him. The gun was still held tucked next to the guy's body; and I asked the universe for a little help because if he'd stretch out his arm, Jim would have no trouble shooting the gun out of his hand.

Jim kept trying to get the guy to back down, offered to get him anything he wanted, promised the cops would look into what he said this Cynthia had done.

The unfortunate pink-haired woman who'd stumbled into this mess told Jim, between great, gasping sobs, that her name was Penny.

The gunman, who so far had refused to give his name or the names of the kids, had gotten louder in his ranting. He was gonna blow; I could see it, and I knew Jim could, too.

When the sounds of the sirens became louder and louder, Penny made a dash for where Jim crouched on the other side of the gunman's car.

It all happened so fast.

There was the sound of a gunshot, and Penny stumbled and fell to the ground. I watched in horror as the man whirled and tossed the boy over the bridge, then another gunshot sound exploded, but the man grabbed the girl and threw her over the side to follow her brother down into the depths of the river. A third gunshot followed and the man crumpled to the ground.

I saw Jim, weapon ready, rushing him.

That was the last sight of Jim I saw, as I scrambled over the side of the Tenth Street Bridge and jumped into the river.

 

  
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“Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart.”

 _The Tempest_ , Shakespeare.

 

I gasped from the hard, cold shock of impact, high tide bringing with it even more of the ocean to mingle with fresh river water, the taste of it on my lips as I went down deep into the depths.

It was dark, murky, and I instinctively went to _shift,_ my hands tearing at my jacket, then shirt, toeing off my shoes, but the tingle that always began my transformation wasn't there, and I was hit by a flood of memories. I remembered that I was only human now and that this frigid water could easily kill me. The memory of seeing the children being thrown so callously to their deaths flooded me, and I kicked my way up to the surface, looking frantically for some sign of them.

I caught a glimpse of something colored to the right and I swam there, already feeling the coldness settling into my muscles.  
Whatever it was I had seen disappeared under the choppy water, but I was close enough to dive for it. It had been so easy to rescue Jim when I'd been a selkie; diving down as a human was much more of a struggle, but I grabbed cloth, my eyesight not much use, and I brought my burden to the surface, grateful that the girl's buoyant pink jacket had slowed her descent.

She wasn't breathing. I held her so she floated horizontally and with difficulty breathed into her mouth. I had never done rescue breathing before, not like Jim had done for me, and I didn't know if this child and I would ever touch land again alive.  
A swirl of thoughts went through my head as I breathed for her, all the time feeling my own arms and legs growing leaden. She was so tiny, and just hitting the water from that height could have killed her; the last words I'd had with Jim were a stupid fight; and where was the little brother? Surely boats would be racing for us; could I hold on?

I was too cold, and my muscle tone was disappearing. There weren't any boats close enough yet to save us. We'd slip back under.

We were going to die.

I'd been dead before. Twice. Jim had used the power of his animal spirit to bring me back the second time, after I'd burned my seal skin.

Incacha believed I was a shaman. Incacha believed in me. I felt something inside of me shift, and out of desperation and hope and not wanting to lose the love I'd found with Jim, I went into the spirit world I'd seen with my sentinel lover and called my wolf to me.

 

  
[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)   


 

“In dreaming,  
The clouds methought would open and show riches.”

 _The Tempest,_ Shakespeare.

 

He came, beautiful and powerful, his fur shiny and healthy, and padded around me in a circle, then morphed into, well, me. A naked version of me, looking comfortable and at ease in this blue rainforest. I looked for the black jaguar but my spirit guide shook his head.

“You do not need the sentinel, shaman. Find your own seed of power and nurture it. Go to Incacha; it is time to become his apprentice.”

I crossed my arms, my clothes and lank hair dripping with river water. “I won't be going anywhere, except out with the tide down to Davy Jones' Locker. My body is becoming numb, I won't be able to keep above the water until a boat reaches me. And I hold a child's life in my arms. I grieve for her brother, already beyond my reach. If you do not help me, this child will join her brother in death, too.”

My spirit guide stepped closer and kissed me on the mouth. I felt heat from that kiss flooding through me.

“Keep this heat, shaman. But you can raise your body's warmth without my help. Try. And the boy may not yet be lost. Call to him with the selkie's gift and his mind may yet answer.”

He grasped my face with both hands, his body against my own. “You can heal and the curse of the selkie's lament will lift. You chose the land, and your sentinel; hold fast to him for he is your anchor. You wish to know of your father's people? There is a place in the spirit world that holds answers, selkie.”

He stepped back and lifted his chin. He was beautiful and I thought, maybe this is how Jim sees me. He'd told me time and time again that I was beautiful and desirable.

I felt a second flush burn through me and felt a great longing for Jim's touch upon my skin.

“Shaman, you must return to your body now. But I give you warning: your enemy stirs and attacks as you sleep. Incacha can help.”

He turned from me and strode away, leaving me feel confused and bereft until he turned and grinned at me. I felt that I hadn't seen myself look like that for a long time, and I tentatively returned a small smile. Then, his features blurred, and he was once again the wolf. He ran at me and jumped, but I felt no impact from our joining.

 

  
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The time I'd spent on the spirit plane had been the time from one blink of the eye to the next. I breathed again for the girl, and again, and again. Her little face had gained a porcelain blue tint, adding to the impression that she was a doll, not a living child.

I could move my arms and legs again, and I flashed on what my spirit guide had said, all the while breathing for the girl. _I_ could control my body temperature. Buddhist monks could do it when they meditated, and that precedent was promising.

The girl inhaled on her own and, after I saw her take several more breaths, I drew her close to me to warm her as much as I could. I visualized taking coals from one campfire and shoveling them into another one that was dying out. Matter, energy, I was making my body burn its resources.

I estimated it had been maybe ten minutes since I'd jumped, maybe six minutes that I'd breathed for the girl. She had been without oxygen for several minutes at least. This water was frigid in March, in the forties I guessed, and a cold water drowning held more promise for resuscitation than a warm water one did.

I heard voices, but of course, not the one I longed to hear. Jim had a wounded civilian to give first aid to on that bridge.  
He was listening to me, I was sure of it, counting my every breath. I said his name, and told him that I was sorry about picking that stupid fight, and that I loved him.

The voices grew louder, and I heard the sound of a boat coming close. A life ring splashed next to me, and I let them pull us to safety.

They lifted the little girl into this boat that wasn't much bigger than a large rowboat. Two men reached for me, worry strong in their weathered faces, but I pushed away from them.

“Sweet Mother Mary, his brain's gone soft. C'mon boy, you'll drown, grab hold now, there's a good lad.” He's Irish, I thought. But I sculled away further from them. I had to try. I cleared my mind, now that the care of the girl was in other capable hands.

 _Call to him with the selkie's gift, I'd been told._

I closed my eyes, tuning out the sounds of the boat and the men in it, and the noise of other approaching boats. Then I searched as I had done the time I went looking for Jim after a riptide had caught and carried him far from the shore. It had been easy to seek other minds when I'd been in my seal shape. I hadn't tried since I'd burned my seal skin, but the spirit guide had said to use my gift, so I would make the attempt.

I allowed my body to relax, to warm, and readied my lungs for diving if I found the boy.

There. A collage of innocent childhood memories and thoughts was – right there. I swam further from the boat and then I dove down through the dark waters, down deep, clumsy compared to how sleekly I used to fly through the ocean.

The boy was no more than three, and his thoughts were on cartoons, his mother, birthday cake, and Christmas presents. I felt his joy at tumbling with his siblings, his fascination with the baby his mother had brought home for him. His baby brother would laugh and wave his fat little arms when he made faces for him, and his mother told him that he was her special helper for making Johnny happy.

At last I found him, but his mind was growing dimmer.

I clutched the boy to me and kicked my way back to the surface. I gasped for air, and swam one-handed towards the boat that held the boy's sister. I pushed this poor child into willing arms and didn't fight the hands that grasped my biceps and hauled me to lay dripping in the bottom of the boat at the stern. I had a great view of my rescuer's boots.

I panted, suddenly feeling exhausted and soon I was shivering, watching as one of the men performed CPR on the little guy, the Irish man praying softly as he steered the boat towards a larger one emblazoned with the words, _Cascade Fire and Rescue_ in big red letters on the side. I tried the coals from the fire trick again, but now that it wasn't life and death anymore my body had put a sign on the door that said it was on vacation and it wasn't planning on working that hard again today. It wasn't that sure about next week, either.

They'd wrapped the little girl, who looked about five years old, in an emergency thermal blanket, and tucked her next to the Irish guy, who reached into an open first aid kit and shook out another silvery emergency blanket and covered me with it, the tiller wedged between his arm and his body. I started to sit up, and he nudged me with his foot.

“Stay put, you daft boy. By rights, you should never have come back up, let alone with the child. It's a bloody miracle, and I'll not be responsible for letting you kill yourself now. Lay still, let the doctors look you over at hospital before you go wriggling around.”

He pulled a medal free from under his coat and kissed it, then he pulled it off and reached down to slide it over my head.  
“You must be dear to Saint Brendan, boy. That's the patron saint of sailors, if you don't know. You keep that, and may Blessed Saint Brendan watch over you.”

“Is the little guy breathing?”

He shook his head. “No. But Henry won't give up on him, and them on the rescue boat, they know a trick or two. This little princess is breathing but she's still unconscious. She's cold, I know, but they'll know how to warm her safely. And you, too, boy.”

He nudged me again with his foot, harder this time. “Stay awake now, you don't want to go to sleep just yet. What's your name, what's the children's names?”

“Blair, Blair Sandburg. Joey and Jilly, uh... ” I thought back to what I'd learned from Joey's mind, and there'd been the memory of their mother calling them Joey and Jilly Peters.

“Peters. Joey and Jilly Peters. They live in the blue house. Joey likes Sponge Bob the best, but Jilly likes Patrick. Their daddy scared them today... They wanted mommy but daddy came to the babysitter's instead and called her bad names and hit her... and... an... ”

I felt a nudge from his boot, and the last thing I heard was a voice ordering me to stay awake.

 

  
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[   
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“Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.”

 _The Tempest,_ Shakespeare.

 

I struggled back to consciousness, fighting against the hands pulling at my clothes before I remembered that if I resisted her in any way she was going to use my own words to out Jim as a sentinel. I couldn't afford to displease her, not yet, not before Jim found us and we figured out where she'd sent the blackmail material.

I opened my eyes, prepared to see Alex's cold, beautiful eyes assessing me, deciding how she'd use my body this time for her pleasure.

Instead a bald man wearing a pair of glasses looked down at me and asked me my name, then shone a light in my eyes. I blinked, surprised, and grateful that Alex wasn't anywhere near me after all.

This looked like a hospital. I tried to crane my neck to look around but couldn't move my head, and the man put his hand on my forehead.

“Don't move, you're strapped to a spinal board. Tell me your name, okay?”

That began a barrage of questions from him while nurses cut the rest of my clothing away and then placed blankets around me.

I told them I was feeling exhausted and sore, my head was hurting, and my ankle was throbbing. I'd remembered what had happened about the time the doc asked me to follow his penlight with my eyes, but I was afraid to ask about the children. They were so small, the river so cold and unforgiving to tender bodies plummeting into it. I wondered if the cops had found their mother yet, and if the babysitter was alive. Joey had seen his father striking their caretaker, after all.

Jim must still be tied up at the crime scene. I knew he'd be here as soon as he could manage. He'd have to surrender his gun, be put on administrative leave until the DA's office investigated and had a hearing. There was no doubt that his shooting would be ruled justifiable. I was so glad that he had gotten the babies away before their demented father had remembered they were in his car's back seat and thrown them the twenty or so feet into the Little Swinomish. If the worst had happened, I hoped the youngest children would at least be a comfort to their mother. I didn't know, though. Sometimes grief tormented people so much that they neglected other people they loved to mourn incessantly.

 _And do you want to be that person, Blair?_ I asked myself. I had to come to terms with what I'd done, and accept the consequences of choosing Jim over being a selkie.

Yes, I'd burned out part of my soul, and that excruciating pain still flickered in my memories sometimes. But in the end I'd decided to be Jim's guide, his lover, and it was my free choice. My freely given choice, not like when I'd been a selkie and compelled to be near Jim or later Alex when she'd stolen my seal skin.

I wasn't vulnerable anymore; I didn't have to obey whoever hid my seal coat from me. Thank all the gods that Jim had never made me do anything I didn't want to do, or I don't know that I would have stayed with him after taking back my lost seal skin.

I was sure that I'd have gravitated towards Jim no matter how we'd met. I'd been interested in him the first time I'd seen him at that little ocean-side bar in La Push, tanned and handsome and self-assured. I initiated contact that night, not Jim, and flirted with him. Later, after I'd rescued him from the ocean and we'd gone back to his motel room and fucked each other, I'd been careless with my seal skin and he'd found it.

I'd followed him to Cascade, but I didn't know why I felt such a strong compulsion to find him. I just knew I had to be with him, and I chalked that up to wanting him after our night together. At the time I was so new to being a selkie that I mostly didn't believe the old legends that a selkie could be held captive by taking their seal skin and hiding it. Still, I'd asked Jim if he'd found it, since it looked like a choker, and I never thought he would deceive me. After he confessed to me what he'd done, he'd told me that he had worn it secretly to help him control his senses.

We'd had a wonderful week of making love during my first week in Cascade with him, before he decided to marry Carolyn. I'd left then, but I came back, feeling wretched the further away I traveled from him, but I thought it was due to the sentinel/guide bond.

After his marriage to Carolyn had tanked, and he'd asked if we could go back to being lovers, I had said no, not wanting to settle for just being a casual, in the closet fuck buddy, and he'd respected that. It would have been so easy for him to compel me to have sex with him, as I later learned from my experiences with Alex. Jim hadn't raped me. He'd lied to me out of self-preservation, not out of malice. I'd forgiven him. And I had done worse, betraying his trust by being so slipshod with my research that Alex could use it to threaten him with revealing his secret. Jim had forgiven me for that, and again when my shitty security on my laptop had allowed mom to snoop around and send my diss off to Berkshire publishers.

I was going to stop taking out my screwed up feelings on him. He didn't deserve it, and it made me feel petty and small. I needed a change, to go in a new direction in my life.

Not away from Jim. No, never that, but these dreams had to stop. I was still fascinated by my father's people, but I'd ended my days of swimming and searching for other selkies. If I could satisfy my longing to know more about my father's people some other way, then maybe the nightmares and sleepwalking would end.

Something was attacking me in my sleep, the wolf had said. My own mixed-up feelings, I supposed.

Maybe I should try another path, one that Incacha had told me I could travel. I thought again about the wolf's message. I should go to Incacha, he'd said. Incacha would help.

 

  
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The doctor wanted my ankle X-rayed, but held off on any other procedure for the time being. My lack of hypothermia surprised him. Sure, I'd become cold when I was in the boat, but the whammy I'd gotten from my spirit guide and my own efforts to raise my temperature had kept me from losing too much body heat.

He kept asking how long I'd been in the water and shook his head when I told him the time-line, and then he'd asked one of the guys from the rescue boat who'd brought me in the same questions. I was a modern miracle, apparently.

“We know that initially a person's body can run a fever to compensate when they're dropped in cold water the way you were, but it isn't sustainable for your length of immersion. I've never seen anything like this before. What are you, part fish?”

I'd laughed feebly at his joke, and I decided to be brave.

“Doc, the kids?”

He frowned. “They're both still alive, and the boy began breathing again while still on the boat that picked the three of you up. Normally I wouldn't be having this conversation with you since you're not a relative, but you've earned the right to know, and you are with the police, I understand. I won't sugar coat it – they're in bad shape. They both have extensive bruising, and when her father – I heard he was their father? – threw her, he wrenched her arm badly. The boy has two cracked ribs, and we're expecting some internal bleeding with both. They're in ICU.”

He motioned for a nurse to come over. “We're going to keep you on the spinal board for a while longer, just to make sure you don't develop any problems. Someone will take you to get your ankle looked at, but I think it's just a sprain. Let us know if your headache gets worse.” He rested his hand on my shoulder. “You're a true hero, Mr. Sandburg. I'm proud to have met you. I'll check on you when you return from X-ray.”

I felt tears prickling, begging for release, and blinked hard to dispel them. Joey and Jilly were holding on. _Fight hard, little ones,_ I thought. _Don't give up._

 

  
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	4. Bargaining

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Chapter Three

  


_Bargaining_

“Thou shalt be free  
As mountain winds:”

The Tempest, _Shakespeare_

 

Jim had come into the ER shortly after I'd returned from getting X-rayed and headed straight for me, a man on a mission.  
He tugged at one of my bedraggled curls and stared at me like I'd gaze at a precious rare artifact, with awe and longing to run fingers over it, afraid touching would damage the treasure.

Impatiently, I made an imploring sound that broke the spell for him, and he bent down and kissed me, then felt my neck gently.

We talked then, and I said again the words of apology I'd whispered when I'd been in the river. I asked about Penny and the babysitter and if the mother knew what had happened to her children.

“Babysitter's dead, Chief. Blunt force trauma to her head, but Penny's okay. She can't ride that bicycle anytime soon, though, since the son-of-a-bitch shot her in the leg. The mother's on the way to the hospital now. What about you? I kept tabs on what was happening when you were saving the kids, and God, Blair... ”

He squeezed my hand, hard.

I said softly, “I'm fine, well, my ankle's sprained and I feel like I had a run in with a Mack truck, but I'm okay. I've got a lot of things to tell you, man, and in between the hypothermia and almost drowning, I had a message from the wolf. He said Incacha can help me. I've got flex time built up I need to take or lose, and I've got a few vacation days on top of that. You'll be on admin leave – the father is dead, isn't he?” Jim nodded, his “check your emotions at the door” look on his face. “Okay, I vote we get out of town. Let's go to Peru.”

 

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Jim thought that seeing his Chopec friends and Incacha was a fine way to spend time before his hearing date. Unless Simon pulled strings and called in some favors, it'd be two and a half months before he had to give his testimony. He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, called Simon, and told him not to bother upping his court date, and explained our travel plans.

I mournfully wondered if a fish had eaten my cell phone, since it had made the jump with me. My wallet had been in my jeans and the water had ruined some things. Then I felt ashamed of such petty concerns, when two little kids were fighting for their lives up in ICU.

Jim extended his hearing to check on them, my hand on his arm to help him stay focused, and there had been no change.   
I sent him home to get some rest after the doctor said he was admitting me for the night. I wasn't surprised when Jim arrived back at my hospital room, though, with a bag of clothes and my laptop.

“Don't start with me, I'm staying. And Simon asked if you want someone to come over here for your statement or if you want to go to the station tomorrow. There's also some reporters hanging around. Do you want to talk to them?”

I yawned, and scrunched down in the bed. It felt good to be off that damn uncomfortable board. “No reporters. Let's go with the official spokesperson thing, instead of me yapping. I'll go tomorrow to the station, give my statement, and set up my sick and extended leave with Human Resources. Any more word on the kids?”

He was silent for quite a while and I made circles on his palms while he checked. “The mother's there, and her two sisters. She's barely holding it together, and blaming herself for ever getting involved with that loser. Apparently the marriage was rocky from the start, and he couldn't keep a job and Cascade Community College kicked him out because he wouldn't go to classes. Then he got caught up with drugs – meth, crack – became paranoid and 'weird.' They separated after she got pregnant with the last baby. She had a restraining order on him because of threatening statements he made about her. He still saw the kids occasionally with his mother supervising visitations, until his behavior got so erratic even his mother told the judge he shouldn't see them. The kid's mother thinks he took the kids to get revenge because divorce papers were served on him today. She's just a mess, Chief, but at least her family is supportive. She knows what you did and wants to thank you, but she doesn't want to leave ICU. Do you want to go up there after you're discharged?”

I nodded, and he said, “Everything is about the same medically with the kids. The CT scans didn't show any internal bleeding, but they're being watched for it. Joey is on meds because his EEG showed some seizure activity and that can interfere with his recovery. Jilly is awake but dazed. She doesn't remember anything after her father showed up at the babysitter's house. They're watching her and Joey for neurological problems, and of course, pneumonia. But they're young, and you got to them fast, and the coldness of the water in a way protected them from maybe having severe neurological problems. It's a wait-and-see-game now, Chief. This is the most critical time, and if they make it to morning their chances of coming out of this intact or only lightly damaged are much higher.”

A nurse came in and did my own medical checks, and Jim and I just chilled for the rest of the evening, broken up by his occasional updates about the kids. We watched the evening news and heard the reactions of people who had watched the rescue from boats and the bridge. I tried to do a little work on my diss, but I couldn't concentrate enough so I ditched the laptop.

Megan and Simon came by, mostly to see for themselves that I was okay. They didn't stay long, maybe the way I kept yawning had something to do with that.

Jim quietly asked me after they'd left if the reason I hadn't drowned and had been able to help the kids was because I still kept some selkie abilities. Yes and no, I told him. I'd been only moments away from slipping under the water. I couldn't swim or hold my breath the way I did when I was in my seal form, and the cold had drained the strength from my muscles. I explained how I'd gone to the spirit plane and the help the wolf had given me, and that the one selkie gift I'd retained that had let me find Joey had been my ability to seek other minds.

“Jim, I'll never be a selkie again, but I can learn more about being a shaman, and maybe the spirit world can help me find the other selkies. I think, no, I _know_ it would help me deal with, uh, everything that's happened. I'm sorry I've been so hard to live with these last couple of months. Going to Peru is the best idea I've had in a long time. I really want to be better, Jim. No more sleepwalking, nor more lying awake at night wondering if I'm the last selkie on earth.”

“All right, Child of the Open Sea. Sounds like a plan. I'll even let you drive my truck home if you want.”

I threw a pillow at him and he wouldn't give it back until I'd kissed him.

Next to my bed, he arranged the hospital chair that stretched out into something resembling a bed, although his long frame didn't fit very well on it. He muted the sound down on the TV until I couldn't hear it and held my hand. I went to sleep listening to the regular reassuring sound of his breathing and thought I'd never take that gentle movement in and out of lungs for granted again.

 

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	5. Depression

  
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**Chapter Four**   


  


  
_Depression_   


“Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.”

 _The Tempest,_ Shakespeare.

 

We left Cascade four days later on a note of good news. Cynthia, Joey and Jilly's mother, called me the night before we flew to Peru to tell me that the children were definitely recovering, with minimal neurological deficits that were improving daily. Joey did remember being thrown off the bridge, and had reverted to bed-wetting and thumb-sucking, and both kids were going to see a trauma specialist for therapy. She asked me and Jim to come and visit after we returned.

I told her we would, of course. Jim was one big marshmallow when it came to little kids, and I felt a connection to all four of Cynthia's children, having held each of them in my arms on the day their father tried to kill them on Tenth Street Bridge.

One thing almost dying is good for is a kick in the pants about what's important to you. I didn't want to damage my relationship with Jim, so I was keeping to my resolution to not vent my negative feelings on him.

My sleep walking was still occurring and, maybe because of how I'd forced my body to produce heat while in the river, I felt even more drained of energy than before. I tried to fight against that feeling, but I felt tired every hour of the day. My concentration sucked and I couldn't believe the crap that I'd written so far for my diss. The temptation to delete everything was strong, but I held off that impulse. I'd re-evaluate it when we returned from Peru.

I was hopeful that the wolf was right, and that Incacha could help me. On a spirit walk two nights ago, the shaman had visited Jim in his dreams and had sent a message to me to come soon.

We flew into Iquitos, a Northern Peruvian city that I'd first visited with my mother years ago. I remembered it as a vibrant place with beautiful historic buildings contrasting with balsa raft houses that floated in villages on the river. There'd been open air markets brimming with medicinal herbs from the forest and boulevards overflowing with street musicians and clowns and martial arts dancers all sharing their talents with onlookers. I also recalled the crazy way motorcycles and motor-kars, a kind of three-wheeled motorized rickshaw, zoomed around, ready to mow down oblivious tourists. That hadn't changed.

We'd arrived early in the afternoon and the airport motor-kar had dropped us off downtown at the Plaza de Armas. Tomorrow we were meeting with an old army buddy of Jim's that had agreed to lend us a hand with our travel plans, but tonight we'd stay in Iquitos. I watched Jim savoring the exotic scents of the city, an intrigued look on his face. He asked me if I wanted to do some exploring, but I just didn't feel like it. I didn't want to rain on his parade, though, so I told him he should go explore after we checked in, and I'd hold down the fort at the hotel.

He frowned, and made to feel my forehead, but I hissed at him to cut it out and pushed his hand away. Jim gave me a look that I pretended not to have seen and announced he was starving. We followed his nose to a little restaurant around the block and ordered tamales and humitas. I wasn't really hungry and pushed my plate towards Jim to finish after I'd swallowed enough of the corn dish to keep him from giving me another one of those concerned looks.

We went to Hotel La Casona immediately after eating, walking past the large fountain and ornate buildings that decorated the Plaza.

He went to feel my forehead again once we had shut the door on our small room. This time I let him.

“I'm not sick, Jim. I just don't feel like going out, rubbing elbows with people. But you should definitely take advantage of being here, it's really a very cool city.”

I smiled to reassure him, but he just gathered me in his arms and hugged me.

“You might not be sick, Blair, but you're not all right. Don't think I haven't noticed. I've been watching you force yourself to act like everything is fine for weeks, months, hell, ever since you burned your seal skin, really.”

He pushed me away from him a little, so he could see my eyes. “Why don't you spill what's floating around in your head, Chief? I want to help.”

I shrugged my shoulders, giving in.

Jim read that as the acceptance it was and steered us to the bed. He gave me a light push and I climbed on it, stretching out face down, moving the thin pillow around, trying in vain to get comfortable until Jim handed me his to put on top of mine. I laid my head down, feeling exhausted, and he stretched out next to me. He touched the chain around my neck and slid his fingers down to grasp the medal of Saint Brendan and pulled it free, studying it.

“My granny used to say this little prayer: 'May the saints protect ye, an' sorrow neglect ye.' I want you to be happy again, and I know what it feels like... well, I know how I feel when something truly shitty has happened and I've lost someone I cared about. I don't know how you feel, though. Tell me, Blair.”

I gave a sigh, too tired anymore to put on an act for him.

“It's not that I'm trying to fool you or anything, Jim. Maybe I've just been trying to fool myself. I keep hoping that if I just force myself to think everything is all right, then it will be. I'm not totally deluded through; I took enough psychology classes to recognize I have classic symptoms of depression, now that I'm paying attention to what's going on with me, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I'm hoping Incacha can help me with that last part.”

Jim pressed a small kiss to the side of my neck. “You lost part of yourself, Blair, and your connection to relatives you hadn't even met. It's okay to grieve, I understand that. You think I didn't cry when my men were killed, when I buried them by myself? I haven't seen you cry since that day on the beach when you destroyed your seal skin. I'm not going to think you're a wuss if you tear up.”

He frowned. “All this sleepwalking isn't helping. I know you're bone tired. Your scent is different now, it's got this sad tinge to it. You haven't really been interested in making love, either.”

“I'm sorry. I'll try to be more responsive.”

He thwacked me softly on the back of my head with a finger. “That wasn't me hinting for a blow job, or anything. It's just me observing another way that your depression is affecting you.”

He started rubbing my back with long strokes, soothing me, occasionally working on stressed muscles, releasing the hard knots and making me sigh in pleasure.

“I love you, Blair. And you're good in bed, you know that, right?” He didn't wait for my response. “That's not why I love you, though. Y ou understand that, don't you?” Again, he didn't wait for me to answer him. “Crap, I'm getting into mushy territory here, but I fell in love with you, not your dick.”

I mumbled, feeling tender-hearted towards him, “Me, too, but when we first met it was the sex that interested you. That was some time we had, back in that motel the night I pulled you from the Pacific. You made me scream. Told me you'd make me howl like a god-damned wolf. Any idea how often I replayed that scene in my head, especially after you chose Carolyn?”

“And I'll make you do it again, Chief, when you're ready. Wounds need time to heal, and you've been badly hurt. Just don't shut me out, okay? I think you need to talk, and I want to listen.”

He was right. And I was so tired. My spirit guide had told me Jim was my anchor. No matter how far I was drifting, he would keep me from becoming lost.

I told him everything, and not just how I'd been feeling since I chose to end my selkie life. I told him how I had felt when he'd chosen Carolyn, how scared I'd been that the FBI would make the charges against me stick.

It was hardest to talk about Alex and how terrified I'd been that she'd kill me on a whim, because that woman had not been stable. I'd watched her snap her boyfriend's neck with no more concern then if he'd been a branch in her way on a trail.

She was a psychopath, charming others only in order to take advantage of them. She was callous and lacked empathy. I hadn't been a human being to her; I'd just been a handy tool to teach her about her senses and a human GPS to help her find the Temple of the Sentinels. And an unwilling whore.

She'd called me her pet. She'd enjoyed the power she'd held over me.

She'd made me crawl and follow her every command. She'd sexually abused and humiliated me. I'd done what she'd asked even before I'd been compelled to do everything she ordered because she stole my seal skin. She hadn't needed weapons because just the threat to release my own words that would out Jim as a sentinel was enough to make me her little bitch.

I deserved her abuse because I'd been so stupid. I should never have been so careless with my research.

I still felt that way, even after Jim did his best to talk me out of it, but I went to sleep feeling better than I had in a long time, comforted by the feel of Jim's warm body next to mine.

 

  
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I wanted to, well, not really _lie_ to Jim about how great traveling the headwaters of the Amazon in this small river boat was, because it was totally amazing, I knew it was, but even though it was incredibly cool I didn't feel excited. If I tried to fake it for Jim, though, I'd be throwing his kindness back in his face. So I wouldn't dredge up a false enthusiasm for the wildlife and birds decorated with brilliant plumage that we glimpsed. Jim didn't want a snow job; he wanted me to be honest with him.

So I told him to take lots of pictures, and I would, too, so when I was doing better I could remember the trip without the gray haze of depression dulling my enjoyment.

I gazed down into the coffee-with-cream colored water of the Rio Napo and wondered what it would have been like to have traveled these Amazon waterways as a selkie. Would I have swam with a pod of pink dolphins? Local legend said they were shape-shifters, too, and like the selkies would come ashore to make love to humans who called to them. If that was true, perhaps I could have communicated with them, and maybe they could have told me about my own people.

Maybe I would have gone the length of the Amazon, swum with manatees and gray dolphins, and entered the Atlantic Ocean. It would have been wondrous, totally amazing – the trip of a lifetime.

Jim sniffed the air and kicked the motor up to a faster speed.

“Rain will be here in about thirty minutes, Chief. I'd like to tie up before that, get the rain tarps set up.”

Jim had borrowed the colorful old wooden speed boat with its wooden canopy roof from a Ranger buddy that had retired in Iquitos. It was the reason we'd flown here, instead of coming in by helicopter from the north, as we'd done when we'd accompanied Incacha and the other Chopec men back to their lands.

I thought Jim had made these arrangements mostly for me, because the river trip was more interactive with the rainforest. Already we'd seen macaws and toucans and monkeys and some tapirs. It was sweet of him. I told myself to try harder to enjoy myself.

I nodded and searched the sky, brilliant and colorful with sunset approaching but couldn't see rain clouds. I'd have to take Jim's word for it, but I knew he'd be proven correct.

It was late enough in the evening that we'd probably settle in for the night and cook our dinner over a small camping stove. Maybe we'd luck out and catch some fish for supper and breakfast. Maybe even piranha; contrary to every old Tarzan movie I'd ever seen, more people ate them then they ate people. It was only a few types that were meat eaters anyway, the rest were vegetarians.

I'd spotted caiman sunning themselves on the banks and at night their red eyes would shine in the beam of my flashlight.

We'd tied our large hammock to the hooks on the canopy supports and spread the mosquito nets over us and surrounded the sleeping area with them. The boat was broad enough to be relatively stable, so we were able to move around without tipping it over. We'd go to sleep listening to the tree frogs singing and birds calling to each other.

My sleepwalking problem had resulted in Jim coming up with a low-tech solution last night, after we'd tied up to a tree. He'd fastened a cloth between our wrists, so he'd wake up if I climbed out of the hammock and started stumbling around in a deep sleep. It had worked well enough last night.

We'd be on the Rio Napo for a few more days before hiking into the rainforest to meet the Chopec. We'd planned to camp on the two hundred mile trip upriver, but on the way back we would stop at some of the river lodges to spend the evenings. Jim said he'd be ready to drink a cold beer after several weeks in the rainforest, and these jungle lodges were kept stocked up for the tourists.

I hadn't traveled this part of Peru before, and we'd left Iquitos, heading north-east downriver on the Rio Solimoes and then we'd turned onto the Rio Napo, heading north-west. All these rivers eventually joined to become the mighty Amazon.

There were still tribes thought to be living in this area between the Rio Napo and Rio Tigre that hadn't had contact with western civilization.

The Chopec hadn't been as isolated as those tribes, but their contacts with outsiders were very limited. Jim had been lucky that they had taken him in. Really, they were eco-warriors, fighting against drug lords, loggers, and oil companies who attempted to intrude on their lands.

I liked their culture and they had welcomed me since I was Jim's guide. I knew I should be excited about spending time with them once more, as I had been the first time Jim had brought me here to meet them, but again, it was hard to feel much anticipation or eagerness.

Jim called softly to me and I looked to where he was pointing at something in the river.

My eyes widened. “Jim, is that what I think it is?”

“If you're thinking that's an anaconda, then you'd be right. And he's pretty big; try not to fall in, okay, Chief?”

“Yeah, not really on my agenda for the evening.”  
“We're not making camp here, and I got pretty good at detecting wildlife when I was the Chopec's sentinel. You won't end up in the belly of a snake while I'm around.”

I gave an honest chuckle back to him, amused despite the lethargy of depression that was gripping me.

“My hero.” I said it lightly, but I meant it.

Jim caught the undertones in my comment, and smiled at me, and I felt a flash of desire for him.

Oh, gods above and below, I wanted to feel happy again, with him, with my job, with my life.

I hoped Incacha could help me regain all that even more than I hoped he could teach me the way of the shaman. As a shaman traveling the paths to different spirit planes, perhaps I could find answers about my people.

 

  
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“Stop:  
Let us not burden our remembrance with  
A heaviness that's gone.”  
 _The Tempest,_ Shakespeare.

 

Incacha visited Jim's dreams one night and told him the rest of the travel arrangements. When it was time, we hid the boat up a small tributary and hiked north and then turned west. Jim was familiar with the trails so all I had to do was to follow him.

My ankle was a little tender at times, but we'd taken a slow pace and it didn't swell up.

We met up with the young man Incacha had sent to wait for us several hours from the Chopec's current campsite. They were semi-nomadic and had several encampments they alternated between using, depending on the game and the seasons.

Jim spoke to Hastu in Quechua, and I struggled to follow along. Jim had tried to give me refresher lessons while we motored along upstream, but my concentration wasn't good and finally he'd given it up.

Jim engaged in some male bonding, feeling Hastu's bicep and teasing him about becoming so strong, before asking him about his family. Then it was my turn and I stumbled through greeting him.

Hastu spoke rapidly to Jim again, and I thought I caught the word for jaguar. Jim nodded to him and then told him not to worry, that he would keep watch, and he said it slow enough that I could understand him.

“Jim?”

“Yeah, Chief, there's been a jaguar in the area. I'm going to listen for a bit, before we head out to their camp.”

He held out his hand to me and I felt a flush of pride that he relied on me to guide him. I loved this man, and I'd made the right decision when I'd tossed my seal skin into the fire.

When Jim had finished listening and looking around, he declared it safe to travel, and we followed Hastu into the Chopec village.

 

  
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Jim greeted Incacha and gripped him by his shoulders, his tone respectful but casual with him as he asked about Incacha's health and how things stood with the Chopec and the oil companies and loggers.

When Incacha and Jim had finished catching up, then Incacha gazed at me, and with a quick gesture of his hand indicated that I should accompany him.

I picked up my backpack, but Jim took it from me, and slid the machete out from the sheath where I had secured it across the back of my pack.

“I'll build us a hut, and put our things inside. When Incacha turns you loose, say my name and I'll meet up with you.”

I started to nod, feeling a bit like it was the first day at a new school. I'd had lots of those as a kid, since Naomi and I moved around so much.

Something in Jim's face changed and he walked over and gave me a one-armed hug. He whispered in my ear, “He got me through that mess with Alex, at the temple. I trust him with my life, and more importantly, with yours. So don't worry, okay. You're going to get better.”

I flushed, realizing that my scent must have given away my trepidation, although as hot and sweaty as I was, I didn't know how Jim had noticed it. Or maybe my poker face needed more work.

Then I squared my shoulders because I wasn't a scared little kid, and all my instincts were telling me that Incacha could help me.

I hugged Jim back and pushed away from him and walked over to Incacha. He gave me a long assessing look and then said, “Apprentice. Come.”

I followed him to his hut, which was built out of large fronds laid over a wooden frame of branches and located just outside of the rest of the village. I no longer heard the sounds of people talking and working, only the continuous cacophony of jungle music from the insects, birds, and monkeys.

Shamans lived apart from their people, and they tended to be removed from the day-to-day goings on of communal living. If I followed the path of the shaman I wondered what that would mean for my life. I wouldn't be a traditional shaman, like Incacha. Instead I would have to adapt the roles a shaman played to my current way of life. Or else I'd have to make changes. Right now, I wasn't sure how things would end up, and maybe I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe I wasn't really cut out to be a shaman.

There was a small campfire burning and Incacha arranged a pot of water so it straddled two large water-smoothed stones, with coals heaped up between them.

Then he motioned for me to sit down away from the fire. I arranged my body into a simple yoga cross-legged position and he sat across from me, his skin decorated in red and black patterns, ritual symbols to help him channel his power.

He spoke slowly to me, and told me that during this time I was to only eat what he gave me, and that I should not spill my seed. After my body had taken in the special diet for five days, he would do a healing ceremony for me and together we would explore the reasons for the unbalance he sensed in my soul.

He asked permission to enter my dreams, and I granted it.

He also said that during the time I was visiting, he would show me the plant-teachers that a shaman used to walk the spirit world's paths and to help those in his care.

“You have died, man of two worlds, and walked the paths of the spirit world as a shaman does. It is a beginning but there is much to learn yet.”

He rose to tend to the fire and returned with the steaming pot of water and poured some into a cup-gourd, then reached into the belt pouch he wore and sprinkled dried herbs into the water.

“Drink, Apprentice. And then you must unburden yourself to me. You were once as the shape-shifters of the river, the pink dolphins that will come to lie with men and women in the pleasing shape of a human being. Tell me of your origin and what happened when you burned your soul.”

I was startled that he knew that, but he reminded me that he often came to Enqueri's campfire during dreams and that my sentinel's great concern for me had led him to share his worries. Incacha knew a great deal about our lives and the problems we'd faced and those we were still struggling to overcome.

I knew that research showed that the best outcome for improving clinical depression was to combine talk therapy with medication, at least in western civilization. It looked like Incacha's treatment would be along the same lines.

I sipped at my tea, and haltingly began to tell him about how I'd found my mother's journal and a carefully guarded secret wrapped up with it.

 

  
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The five days before the curing ceremony had passed slowly for me. Incacha could show the members of my diss committee a thing or two about conducting a thorough examination of a candidate. My oral defense had been a breeze compared to what Incacha required me to discuss.

I'd talked to therapists before, but they were governed by the clock. I'd learned to be self-protective in a sneaky way because if I felt like I was starting to crack, to really let out my oh-so-guarded feelings, I could stall until my hour was up. I'd be out the door with instructions to think about the discussion and we'd talk about it next time. Except I would derail the discussion if the therapist brought it up again with some new topic. I guess I was being passive-aggressive, wanting to purge myself of things that had brought trauma to my life but at the same time I didn't want to talk about it. I'd never had a therapist who pinned me down and didn't let me wiggle out of finishing what I started.

Until now. Incacha didn't let me get by with anything, and I found myself telling him just about everything in my life that had left emotional scars.

I hardly saw Jim during the day since Incacha also kept me busy with identifying medicinal jungle plants and learning their traditional uses. I also meditated for hours daily, searching for insight into myself. My sessions with Incacha had stirred up a lot of crap in my psyche.

On the fifth day since we'd come to the Chopec, he observed me meditating and decided that I had enough skill to bring me to the spirit plane with only minimal help from plant-teachers. Instead, he said Jim would drum for me and I would take ayahuasca tea to ease my way into the spirit world.

I'd tried to sleep-walk again for the last four nights, but Jim kept me from wandering off into the jungle.

Incacha hadn't tried to enter my dreams, stating that it was not yet time. He would do the curing ceremony first before visiting my dreams as he did with Jim.

Despite the teas, the meditating, the purging of my emotions, I still felt dull and gray. My depression had not yet lost its grip on me. I felt like I was letting Incacha and Jim down, but Jim just hugged me and Incacha became more thoughtful and made me tell him again of my time spent with Alex.

 

  
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	6. Acceptance

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center> **Chapter Five**

_Acceptance_

 

“I shall no more to sea, to sea,  
Here shall I die ashore--”

 _The Tempest_ , Shakespeare.

 

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Incacha conducted the ceremony in the evening, after I had fasted for twenty-four hours, drinking only medicinal teas prepared by him, and meditating.

He had brewed the ayahuasca earlier and began the ceremony by doing a blessing with sacred tobacco, waving the smoke over me and over the gourd containing the ayahuasca. I drank the gritty bitter cup of sludgy tea down, trying not to make a face at the taste, which I had heard others describe as a cross between prune juice and Bailey's Irish Cream. While I forced the tea down my gullet Incacha sang an icaros to facilitate the curing ceremony. Jim drummed, and the beat, slow and steady, helped to center me.

I vomited not long afterwards and rinsed my mouth with water but didn't drink any. Incacha's low chanting blended in with the drumming and the sounds of the jungle.

I'd been to the spirit plane before. More accurately, I should say that I'd been to _a_ spirit plane. Jim's version, in fact. And even though I really knew better, that was where I had expected to find myself on this journey to the astral plane.

Yeah. That didn't happen.

As colors swirled around me, I found myself walking on a beach, the ocean crashing down in waves that ran towards me and then slipped away again, back into deeper black water.

I didn't want to be here. This was not a place of comfort or solace. It wasn't the happy place I'd read that some people had experienced during their ceremonies.

I heard Incacha's voice telling me to search for what troubled me at this place of sand and ocean. A part of me noted that he was sharing my vision, and I felt some of my dread slip away, knowing I had backup.

I took a step towards the ocean, and then another and then another until I was knee-deep, waves crashing against me. I became naked with a thought, and let the ocean batter against my body, cleansing me. Salt water, water of protection. I was safe in the ocean; it was the beach that held danger to me.

I went further out into the welcoming sea-water. I tried to transform, hopeful that here on the spirit plane I could once again be a selkie, and plunge deep into the waters that had been my birthright.

Intense pain flashed over me when I tried. I screamed, tormented once again by the immolation I'd experienced when I'd burned my seal skin.

I stopped trying to transform and sweet relief flowed over me, and I sobbed, once again overcome with grief for the ending of that part of my life.

I wept then, my tears falling into the ocean as surely as iron flies to a magnet. Salt water from my body, joining all the other tears shed in the world which found their way through stream and river to come together here in linked sorrow.

Or joy or anger. Any strong emotion could trigger the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic system into producing tears containing hormones and painkillers, the body's way of regaining emotional balance and affecting others. I'd always found it fascinating research.

I plunged my hand down to capture a group of glowing silvery tears, all tumbling around each other. I saw a funeral, a community of friends and family mourning the death of a five month old baby girl, lost to SIDS. I felt their collective grief but also the love those parents and their friends had felt for that child and for each other, grief drawing them close to each other's souls. Opening my hand I let the tears return to the sea.

I cupped a new handful of sea-water and the brightly hued tears made me grin when I saw a man crying with joy at winning the lottery. He would pay off his mortgage, his children's student loans, and kiss the boring, soul-destroying job he had goodbye. He was going to take his wife on a trip around the world, and they would finally see all the wondrous things they dreamed over when they read National Geographic. Still smiling, I released his tears of happiness.

As I gazed around me, I saw tears glowing throughout the waters around me, stretching out to the horizon before me.

Selkie legend told that to draw forth a selkie, tears or blood must be dripped into the sea. My mother had used blood, coppery, salty essence of life, joined with her longing for a lover just for that night to give her comfort. My father had answered her plea, but had been gone with the morning tide. My mother said I had his eyes and his hair, my only remaining physical legacy.

Jim had cut himself to drip his blood into the cold Pacific, calling out to me so strongly with his mind that it took everything I had to stop myself from coming to where he waited on shore.

When he mastered his own fears of being swept out to sea and swam out on his surfboard to repeat the ritual, I made a leap of faith and trust and rejoined him. When it became clear I could have my selkie life or I could have him, my lover, my sentinel, I made my choice.

I wept again, because I had two sources of grief about that decision, my personal loss and how I'd cut any connection I had to my father's people. I could never swim with them now and share their lives.

Time passed, my tears joining their sea-brethren, traveling out into the wide ocean where I could no longer follow.

A kind of peace infused me at last. My mother has a saying, “I'm letting this go,” and so I did. I let my selkie life go. I would remember the joy, but I would pine no longer. I had given my tears to the sea; I had no more use for them.

I turned to the shore. It was time to puzzle out why this beach troubled me. I waded ashore and suddenly it was dark and the moon was rising up from the sea, huge and red.

I heard drumming and Incacha's voice telling me to be strong.

Something was wrong. Someone was coming.

She was there suddenly. Alex, beautiful as always, and she wasn't alone. A man, his long curly hair hiding his face, was kneeling at her feet, the chain around his neck attached to a collar.

“Blair,” she cooed to me, her voice the dangerous mix of sultry and demonic that I so well-remembered. She showed me the chain attached to her wrist, which connected her to the captive.

“I've had such fun with you, my little selkie-guide. You don't remember because I've clouded your memories.” She waved her hand in a graceful movement. “I release the dreams I hid from you. You're mine, Blair. Your dreams are mine, and your medicine man and sentinel can't prevent me from coming to take you again when next you dream. And soon, I'll be strong enough to wake my body up. I'll come for you. Ellison won't be able to stop me. You'll guide me, then, until I find a worthy guide. Then you'll just be my pet.”

She ran her hand down the hair of the kneeling man, and then grasped it harshly, jerking his head up and back.

I felt numb, helpless. The man was me. He looked terrified, traumatized.   
She started to laugh and I staggered from the weight of my remembered dreams.

Oh, God. How could I have forgotten how she had invaded my sleep, forcing me to relive the time I'd spent as her hostage and her whore.

I felt so sick. All my self-loathing and hatred for what I'd allowed her to do to me when I'd complied with her sexual demands was twisting my stomach and I doubled over in pain.

Still laughing, she snapped her fingers and pointed down at the sand.

“Crawl to me, guide. Little lost selkie. I don't want to wait until you dream. Come closer, pet, and lick me till I come. It's all you're really good for, isn't it.”

I made an involuntary step forward, and then I stopped. Why did she have power over me now? I'd destroyed my seal skin, seared my soul to do it. Why was I chained to her still?

Incacha's voice whispered to me, “Do you see now, Apprentice, that these chains this layqa binds you with were forged by you? You must break them.”

I looked again at the chains that held the kneeling image of myself. I had done this? I wanted to be her slave? No! I didn't want that! I wanted to sleep at night peacefully. I wanted the life with Jim that I had paid for so dearly.

I charged at her, this layqu, this sorceress who had grown so deadly in her power. I would tear those chains from the part of me she held captive.

She laughed at me, a throaty chuckle, an owner amused at the antics of her pet, as I tried to grasp the chains to tear them apart. I couldn't touch them, my hands deflected away no matter how much I strained to grasp them and free that poor imprisoned part of myself.

“Oh, Blair, silly boy. Don't you know you put yourself in these chains? You'll never be rid of them.” She grabbed me around my throat, and I felt weak, unable to resist her commands. “You haven't done as I told you to do. For that, I think I'll fuck you. Make you come on the sand as I ride you. We never did that in Sierra Verde, and it's time you learned a new trick.”

She forced me to my knees and suddenly it was me wearing the chains and my twin had disappeared.

Alex laughed again, chilling me. “Suck my cock, selkie. Get it wet before I bend you over.” She was naked now, and had re-arranged her flesh to form male genitals. “I should have made you do this a long time ago. But waiting has its own rewards -- now Jim can watch you getting hard on my cock. You can show him how sweet of a slut you can be for me, pet.”

She took her cock in her hand and touched it to my lips. “Open your mouth.” New tears slid down my face and I obeyed, her long cock filling my mouth, making me want to gag.

Then my humiliation became a hundred times worse. I heard Jim's voice behind me.

“Chief, I'm here. You need me, let me help.”

“Isn't he a picture, Jim? He was made to serve sentinels, you know. For now, we'll share. You can fuck him during the day, and I'll take him at night.”

She started to rock into my mouth, building a rhythm. I hated her, I hated myself for letting her hurt me like this, but I didn't know how to fight her. Jim was watching me serve Alex as her sexual thrall. I had told him what she'd made me do, but now he was seeing it for himself. My self-loathing was drowning me, and the sky darkened and rain fell in torrents upon us. The sea rose and crashed with fierce waves upon this beach, where Jim was being shown how worthless I truly was.

“Blair, let me help you!” There was nothing Jim could do to stop this. I had brought it on myself. I hadn't protected my research by keeping Jim's real name out of it and it was my own fault that she'd stolen it and threatened to let the world know Jim's secret. I was a bad researcher, a terrible friend, careless, and stupid, and I deserved this.

I deserved this.

“No, you don't, Blair. You made a mistake. It doesn't mean she's allowed to punish you. Forgive yourself,” Jim begged me.

Alex guided her cock out of my mouth and raised me up, kissed me deeply, and licked her lips afterwards, no doubt tasting herself on my lips. The pounding rain didn't wilt her cock or stop her from turning me around.

“Time to bend over for me, sweet selkie slut. Selkies are said to be skilled lovers, so make this good for me. Maybe I'll let Jim have a turn when I'm done. He knows it's all you're good for, beautiful Blair.”

I screwed my eyes shut, not wanting to look at Jim while Alex fucked me.

“Apprentice, you must break these chains! Do not listen to the layqa's lies! Call your spirit guide to you, and trust in yourself!”

Incacha's voice no longer whispered, he shouted the words out, competing with the loud crash of the waves and the sounds of thunder.

I flashed on what he had said, that I had made these chains and I was the one who had to break them. Jim couldn't rescue me, although it must be killing him to see Alex tormenting another helpless victim.

I straightened and opened my eyes. For Jim, I would be brave. For Jim, I would do as Incacha asked.

I called my wolf to me.

Alex's cock nudged at my ass, and she wrapped her arms around me, her breasts touching my back.

“Bend over. It's all you're good for, remember.”

“She's a liar, don't fall for it, Blair.” Jim sounded desperate, and I knew that he couldn't tear me from Alex.

I had to save myself.

The wolf materialized in front of me, gray and smoky at first, then gaining form and substance until he was present, softly whining.

He licked at my hand, and I felt comforted.

Alex snarled, and tried to force me to bend down. My wolf growled, and against my back I felt fur, then skin again as Alex tightened her hold around me.

I was so tired. But despite that I felt a seed of hope, of understanding what my task was here in the spirit world.

I addressed the wolf. “Please, share with me your strength.”

For an answer the wolf raised himself up and put his paws on my shoulder and he blurred, shifted, and I was looking at myself again.

Unlike the chained captive I'd seen desolate at Alex's feet, this version of me smiled, looked joyous and confident.

I was held between my spirit guide and my enemy, and Alex pulled me backwards. I sensed her intent. She would try to take me with her from this spirit plane, keep me captive with her where ever her consciousness had found to hide while her body lay in a coma.

I struggled against her. If she succeeded, then I knew my body would fall into a coma, too.

My spirit guide stepped closer to me and said simply, “Your sentinel is your anchor. Go to him.” He moved forward and merged with me.

I felt the wolf's strength, his compassion. Insight flooded me. Jim couldn't pull me from Alex; I had to go to him and he would keep me safe here on this spirit plane.

I looked straight at Jim. He smiled at me, love in his eyes and wryness showing in the quirk of his mouth.

He held out his hands and it was so simple. I simply walked away from Alex and his arms closed around me.

But I wasn't free. I realized it as soon as we touched. I turned and saw once again the image of myself chained and collared, huddled at Alex's feet.

Jim kissed me on the forehead. “Blair. Do you get it now? I'm here for you. For always. Please, Chief, you've got to believe that and that I forgave you for being careless about the research a long time ago.”

I just buried my head in his shoulder.

Alex hadn't made a move to depart since I'd left her for the shelter of Jim's arms. But I could feel her, like I had when she had held my seal skin. She would try again to take me, and if I left this astral plane, then she would seek me again when I slept, where she would rape me every night. My sleep-walking in the physical world had manifested when I'd flee to the sea in my dreams. The hoplessness I'd felt nightly, as she'd finger-fucked me or made me tongue her, had been like a match to gasoline, escalating my depression.

The rain stopped and I could feel the sun again. The sea calmed considerably and I gazed out at those waters, still to my eyes filled with the tears of the world. The ones I'd shed while Alex had fucked my mouth were near the shore, dull black swirls.

Fog started to form around us, and for a while the only references I had were the feel of Jim's body and the sense I still had that Alex was waiting nearby.

Then I noticed the glow of a small campfire, a little ways down the beach. The fog lifted, and I saw Incacha was waiting for us, tending to the fire.

 

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“O, I have suffered.”

 _The Tempest_ , Shakespeare.

 

Jim and I crouched down next to the fire and Incacha handed me another gourd-cup filled with the tea he'd brewed earlier. “Drink, Apprentice. Rest. Then we will talk.”

I did as he bid me. Was I back at his hut, in front of his campfire, or was this tea, the fire, symbols on the astral plane? Shamans could move from one reality to another, and then find their way to their own reality. I bet that quantum physics had some explanation about that, but what science would measure and theorize about shamans like Incacha would do naturally.

Jim pulled me to sit in front of him, near the fire but not close enough to feel uncomfortable. He kissed the back of my neck, and I Ieaned back against him, letting him take my weight. I let my tense muscles relax, grateful for the respite.

Jim didn't talk to me, but after I'd spent some time in that blissful state, not really thinking of anything, just being in the moment, Incacha crouched down next to us.

“Apprentice, your enemy is waiting. She has grown very powerful indeed since taking the potions at the temple. She is a sorceress who has learned to follow the dream-paths, as I do; now she walks a trail into your mind that formed when she stole what belonged to you. I have looked into her soul and she will do great evil in the world if she is not stopped, harming many others in a similar way, haunting their dreams. When her body awakens she will attempt to destroy the world; she will gather weapons as she did when Enqueri stopped her, in the Temple of the Sentinels. I call on you and Enqueri to aid me in what I must do.

“But first, Apprentice, you have a task to do, one that I cannot do for you. Now, let us see how well you have attended to my teachings.”

Huh. A pop quiz while doing a curing ceremony on the spirit plane. Nope, didn't see that one coming. I moved away from Jim and sat in a lotus position, my eyes on Incacha.

“The captive the layqa holds, tell me of him.”

“He's... me. And he's scared to death. He's been abused. He feels degraded, hopeless, worthless.”

Incacha nodded. “What keeps the captive with the layqa?”

“Teacher, he is chained. Alex hold his bonds.”

“What formed the chains, Apprentice?”

“I don't know.”

“Who made the chains? It was not the sorceress; she takes advantage, but she did not forge them.”

“You said that I formed the chains, but I don't know how I did it, Teacher.”

“How can the captive be freed? You cannot destroy the chains by wanting it to be so. You tried that and you failed. There is no shame in failing, a human being fails many times before learning what he needs to know. Now, it is time for you to think on these questions. The tea will help. Enqueri will be with you. He is a protector – he will watch for your enemy and guard you. Come to me when you understand what you must do.”

He left the campfire then, and I stared at Jim, who looked at me sympathetically.

“Incacha never just gives an answer, Chief.”

Okay. The correct response had to be something I already knew, but I was blocking myself on figuring it out. Incacha didn't give out answers on a test, but he did thoroughly teach a lesson. I must know what to do. I just had to make myself put the puzzle together.

The extra dose of ayahuasca I had taken was not sitting well in my stomach. I closed my eyes and thought over what I had told Incacha.

I also thought about everything I had ever learned about shamanism. My mind whirled seeking answers, but I kept coming back to how that captive was me. Me, not just an image of me. We had blended for a time before I'd broken free of her and walked into Jim's welcoming arms. And when I did, that part of me stayed behind kneeling at her feet, chained and bound again. Again. That was a key and I used it to unlock my memories.

Alex had forced me to come with her when she took the nerve gas from Cascade, but I could have gotten away from her. I had stayed because she threatened to release my research to the press if I didn't. The research in which I had named her and Jim as sentinels. It was my fault, no excuses. And, I reasoned, if I hadn't been careless and stupid, she wouldn't have found it and threatened Jim with it. I had stayed with her and let her abuse me, and no, I didn't want the sex she forced on me, but I had thought I deserved that abuse.

I deserved to be abused.

I shuddered with the impact of what I was feeling. Jim, hell, even the FBI agents who'd questioned me had told me I had not deserved what Alex did to me. But I had kept that belief, it had sunk deep into me, along with all its brethren, the feelings of guilt, and worthlessness, and self-hatred, and loathing. All negative emotions. All eating away at me. All influencing my life. And I now knew the answers to Incacha's questions.

He was there, as if he had a pipeline to my thoughts, and, maybe he did.

I felt sick, heavy, weighted down with black energy. I could feel the damage it had done, was doing now to my aura. My soul had carried this weight and I wanted it gone.

I stood and Jim stepped behind me, and put his hands on my shoulders. Jim, guarding my back. Being my anchor. I felt a wave of love for him and Incacha obviously felt it, too, because he smiled at both of us.

Then he raised his eyebrows, his black and red stained features waiting for me to enlighten him.

“The captive is me, not just an image like I'd see in a mirror. Part of my soul fled when Alex took me and raped me, to save me from the worst of what she did to my body.

“I did not give consent to anything she told me to do, but I did the best I could to protect Jim from her, and that meant doing as she told me to do.

“I hated what she asked of me, and because I knew it was my carelessness that made Jim so vulnerable, I hated myself.”

I swallowed. “I was right to take responsibility for my actions; I was wrong in thinking that made her actions in hurting me my fault, too. I did not deserve to be raped or hurt. I did not deserve to be shot and humiliated.

“In essence I gave that lost part of myself to Alex, and I forged the chains that kept me with her. I need to purge myself of the negative emotions that make up the chain, and then I can welcome that part of myself back into my soul.”

Soul retrieval. One of the main tasks a shaman performed for his or her people. Of course I knew what it was, but I had been willfully blind when I'd seen the traumatized captive. I hadn't wanted to let go of the demons of shame, and guilt and self-hatred, because of my twisted belief that I deserved to be miserable to pay for my mistakes.

Incacha nodded. “And now you must force that darkness to leave you, for it clings and the light in your life falls into it, and it darkens your soul.”

My depression. It would haunt me until my soul was whole again.

My stomach roiled again from the effects of the tea. I felt nausea building and visualized all those negative emotions that had attached their energy to me being torn away from my body.

Jim must have recognized the look on my face from the times when I'd had the stomach flu or that god-awful day I ate a bad burrito and got food poisoning or that lack-brained occasion when Marcy had bet me about drinking peppermint schnapps and winning the bet had meant hugging the toilet for hours when I'd gotten home.

He hustled me away from the campfire and held my hair out of my face as I projectile vomited, heaving negative energy out of me, splattering the black shadows into the sand where they slithered away to the sea and disappeared.

Incacha would approve of that. Energy needed to be handled carefully, or it would seek out hollow places in a person's soul and fill it. Shamans had to be spiritually healthy themselves, or they ran the risk of becoming as sick as their patients. Water, especially water laced with the purifying element of salt, would neutralize that energy.

When I was finished I felt weak for a time – and who knows how time is counted on the spirit plane – then Jim helped me to return to the campfire.

Incacha caught my eye and I followed his gaze. Alex was close by, and she held her captive by the hair, but his chains were gone. He was struggling against her but couldn't totally break free.

Incacha stood and walked to the edge of the light cast by the fire. He reached into the pouch he carried for his medicines and brought out a blow gun. He took a pellet, positioned it, and brought it up to his mouth.

He blew hard and the pellet flew to Alex and entered her heart.

She screamed and let go of her captive, who fell to the sand and started to crawl to get away from her.

Incacha stepped to his side and raised him up, singing another icaros, and when the captive started to fall down to the sand again, Incacha picked him up. He carried the poor soul to where Jim and I stood waiting by the fire, Jim against my back, half holding me up. Incacha was cradling, well, me, against his chest.

“Look upon yourself, Apprentice. You must nourish your soul and treat it gently. Do not fall into the trap of blaming yourself when no blame is due.”

I murmured agreement with his words, staring at myself. My other self was pale and scarred, and reluctant to meet my eyes. I touched my other self's face, wiped away the tears that had begun to trickle down his cheeks.

“Don't worry,” I told myself. “I love you and you've been so brave. You – we – will be well from now on.”

He met my eyes and I held out my arms, Jim's strong arms around me and Incacha gave the freed captive to me.

He blurred and I felt dizzy and he was gone from my sight, but I felt my soul accept him – me.

I straightened, feeling strong and ready to stop Alex from ever hurting another person.

She was gone.

 

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“Be free, and fare thou well!”

 _The Tempest_ Shakespeare.

 

The time spent after a curing ceremony is a time to think over what you have learned about yourself. Also, you need to rest in order to get over the physical effects of ingesting ayahuasca.

Incacha didn't let me sleep it off, though, while I physically recovered from the ceremony. Jim stayed close by, under orders from Incacha to not let me fall asleep.

I felt good, wrung out, but good in a way I'd forgotten even existed. I had let go of so much, my grief over burning my selkie life out of me and the lost chances to know my people, and I'd had one hell of a therapy session about self-esteem and self-blame.

Several hours later, after my stomach had recovered, I noticed that everything in the jungle seemed brighter, more alive, and I felt my libido wake up and take notice that there was a beautiful man sharing my hut and bed. I would have kissed him senseless, but after running my tongue around my mouth I decided to get clean first. Jim joined me at a bathing area beside a small stream and we scrubbed each other free of sweat and dirt. Laughing, I was dragging him back with me to our hut, more than ready to get naked and happy with him, when Incacha intercepted us.

I was tempted to hug him. I almost didn't, wondering if maybe shamans didn't do such mundane things, and then dignity, his and mine, be damned, I gave him a bone cracking bear hug.

He smiled briefly at me when I stepped back.

“You are feeling much better now, I think.” He looked apologetically at Jim, and then me. “We must talk before you sleep. Come to my hut.”

He sounded very serious and our playful mood segued into a serious one also.

There was still unfinished business.

 

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“We are such stuff  
As dreams are made on,”

 _The Tempest_ Shakespeare.

 

I dreamed of the sea again, but this time I wasn't swimming in it as a selkie; I was riding a surfboard, and feeling the power of the waves underneath my board. I did a perfect landing on the beach and carried the board up to where Jim was lying on a blanket, book in hand, speedo showing off his assets.

“Chief. A speedo? Really?” He was trying for a grumpy tone of voice, but he couldn't pull it off. He was too amused for that.

“My dream, my rules. Hey, will you teach me to surf this summer? I think it would be really cool, and man, we could go to Hawaii and ditch the wet-suits.”

“Sure. I'd love that. C'mon, let's go for a walk. There's a nice trail from the beach to the campsite. We could have some alone time in the tent, you know.”

I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. “Man, what are you doing just lying there. Get your delectable butt moving, Ellison.”

He laughed and slung an arm around me as we headed towards the scraggly trees on the edge of the beach.

When we were on the trail I looked at Jim with a question in my eyes. He shook his head very slightly.

The path seemed endless, and we walked a spiral pattern that eventually led to our tent and campfire.

Incacha was waiting by the small fire.

“She is coming.” He handed me a blow gun and several pellets he'd made of strong medicine, gathered in a small empty gourd.

Jim picked up his cross-bow and readied an arrow.

Incacha started chanting what I recognized as a protection icaros, holding his own blow gun in his hands.

Suddenly she was there staring at us from the other side of the campfire.

“Blair. Do you think that you're protected now? I can still make you crawl to me. And you've dreamed up Jim and that medicine man to keep you safe. How touching. And how ineffective. I can come to you whenever you sleep. I'm stronger – I'm a sentinel, remember? Any sentinel would be stronger than a weak little guide like you. Now, I was interrupted the last time we met. I hadn't finished fucking you. I plan on rectifying that right now.”

The wind started whipping up around us, and she made her voice sound like thunder.

She stepped into the fire and it blazed up, burning away her dress, but her skin remained untouched. Then she leapt towards me. I scrambled backwards, with Jim and Incacha standing as still as statues.

Laughing, she said, “Oh, do you want to play? Do you want to play pounce? I can do that, pretty little Blair.” She shifted into her jaguar spirit guide and washed a paw with a long tongue, and then she shifted back into her human shape.

“If you run, I'll shift and mark you with my claws. Then I'll fuck you.”

She said, with a purr in her voice, “I really hope you run.” She gathered herself to leap at me and Incacha said, “Now.”

He and I used our blow guns to blow pellets that disappeared as they touched her skin. Jim swung his cross-bow up and shot every arrow he had into her.

She screamed and morphed into the spotted jaguar. Incacha shifted into a large black-bellied patterned boa with a red tail and attacked her, wrapping his twelve-foot long body around and around the jaguar's shrieking, frantic form squeezing it, until at last it lay limp.

Incacha shifted back and stood with Jim and me, watching as the dead jaguar slowly began to disappear. Our plan of Incacha bringing Jim to my dream and the three of us ambushing her had worked.

I felt shaky, having witnessed that utter destruction and very glad that Incacha was not a sorcerer. What he had just done was an incredible feat.

I hadn't known what his spirit animal guide was before now, but it made total sense, since Incacha was in tune with the earth, and his ability to see the truth of a person when he looked at them was one of his strongest powers. He'd looked at me, while almost bleeding to death on Jim's couch, and had named me a shaman. Jim had told me Incacha had known I was different, that I, “belonged to two worlds.” If he said that Alex was so dangerous that she had to be killed, than I believed him.

Incacha walked over to Jim and me and said, “I do not think you wish to stay in this dream. Thank you for your help. Our world is safe now from this evil one.”

He touched first Jim and then me on the forehead, and I found myself blinking my eyes. I rolled over on the bamboo mattress-bed to see that Jim was watching me.

“You okay, Chief?”

I thought it over. “Yeah,” I finally said. “I really am, Jim.”

 

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	7. Epilogue

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**_Epilogue_ **

 

“Hear my soul speak:  
The very instant that I saw you, did  
My heart fly to your service;”

 _The Tempest_ Shakespeare.

 

I had asked Incacha's advice on seeking out my lost kinfolk and true to form, he had made me answer my own question. I had meditated on it for this last week, but I had also spent time gathering stories of shape-shifters such as the pink dolphins and learning more of the plant-teachers from Incacha. Jim and I made love, sometimes twice a day, and he'd had to gag me with his palm so that I could walk among the tribe without blushing from their knowing looks.

I didn't exactly feel like my old self, the man who had never met Alex Barnes, but I felt strong and free and truly interested in life again. I slept well, deeply, and my dreams were uneventful and ordinary, except for Incacha showing up in the one I'd had last night. He had waved to me to follow him and turned to walk swiftly on a jungle path. When I caught up to him, he was seated at a small campfire and motioned for me to join him. I sat cross-legged on the smooth, hard ground and watched the fire with him.

“Apprentice, your time here with the Chopec grows short. Enqueri tells me that in your own lands, the use of the spirit-vine is forbidden. Ayahuasca is but one path a shaman can travel. You should seek out others when you leave us and return to your homeland.”

I nodded my head respectfully. I wouldn't jeopardize Jim's career or my own by using drugs at home, no matter their medicinal potential; however, I would partake again of the plant-teachers when I returned to visit. I still had so much to learn, having barely scratched the surface of what a shaman must know.

“What does your soul need, Apprentice?”

Yeah, I'd been expecting that question.

“Teacher, I wish to know of my people, where they have gone, who they are. I found no traces of them where I looked and perhaps I am not seeking them in the right places. Perhaps they are hidden from me. Perhaps they are gone and no longer swim in the sea or come to the land to dance and laugh and lie down with the lovers who called them to the shore with blood and tears.”

Incacha had accepted that I had been a shape-shifter without blinking an eye, unlike Jim who'd told me he had wondered about me being a selkie for a long time before finally allowing himself to believe it. He'd had to stop relying on what his common sense told him and accept the fantastic.

As far as I was concerned, Jim being a sentinel was just as fantastic, but he didn't see himself as anything but an ordinary guy who'd been stuck with better senses than most people.

Most people couldn't see spirit animals, though, or travel to the spirit plane, or bring their partners back from the dead. Jim tried to ignore most of that, except when he really needed to use those powers.

My thinking about Jim must have been communicated to Incacha.

“Enqueri is strong with his gifts, but it is difficult for him to accept them. You are his shaman, you must keep him open to them.”

I grinned. “So I'm Jim's keeper? I can't wait to tell him that.” Jim would mock growl softly at me when I told him that and then he'd proceed to let me know that any notions I had that I was in charge of him were delusional. Maybe he'd hold me down and make me squirm with desire but not let me touch him, and I'd be his helpless captive while he had his way with me...

A quiet chuckle brought me out of my day-dream and I flushed, realizing that Incacha knew what I'd just been thinking.

“You and Enqueri must learn the steps to the dance that is your lives together. Sometimes he will lead, sometimes you will take charge. Your bond is strong. If you wish to seek the missing ones, you will need that bond to anchor you, or you might become lost also. It is a risk, and one you must think on before deciding to search the spirit world.”

“You think I should do it, then? Try and find my father's people?”

Incacha frowned at me. “Apprentice, what do you think my answer should be?”

I made a face. I had known better, but my motor mouth, even in my dream, had gotten me in hot water.

“Teacher, you would tell me that the choice is mine and counsel me to think hard on my decision first, and remind me that I am bonded and to explore how my actions could affect my sentinel.”

Incacha looked thoughtfully at me for a time, as the fire crackled and I watched a few stars peep through the branches of the rainforest trees.

“I did not counsel you to stop spilling your seed with Enqueri, after the lost part of yourself was returned to you, and the layqa's soul was rendered harmless. While most abstain during a curing, I believe you and Enqueri are building power together of a different sort. When you lie together, you both must focus your thoughts on the connection, the care you have for each other. You would die for him, he would give his life to save yours. If you decide to enter the spirit world to search for the lost ones, you will need that bond with Enqueri or your soul may never return to your body. Taking this journey will be dangerous, Apprentice. But so is life. A snake might poison you. A sorcerer could attack you, as you learned with the evil sentinel woman.”

Sex magic was powerful. Sex was a force that affected your whole body, energy drawn from your very cells and returned in a pleasurable rush of blood and hormones that bathed your brain and body in mood altering and physical changes.

I knew some things about sex magic, in a fairly theoretical way, but I'd never tried to focus my will during sex.

“Incacha, I have much to think about and I need to talk to Enqueri. Thank you, Teacher.”

He rose gracefully and walked away from the campfire and I sat and watched the fire burn down to coals until I had thought through what he had told me.

If Jim agreed to be my anchor, then I would take the risk and look for my kinfolk. And I had some ideas of how to handle the ceremony.

 

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The foul taste of ayahuasca tea was just a distasteful memory as I walked along a rocky beach, small sea birds with white and pearl gray bodies and black tinged wings flying down from the steep cliffs that bordered the beach.

I heard their high-pitched cry of “Keet, keet, wake, wake” as I scrambled across the rocky shore, stopping to look at the creatures trapped in tidal pools, prisoners until the tide freed them.

My longing to see my kinfolk was beating within me to the rhythm of the waves crashing on the beach. I couldn't have said how I knew, but this place, this coast and most of all the large rocky island I could see, although blurred from distance, was a place sacred to selkies.

The air was chilly, a salt tang on the breeze, and I walked out into the freezing ocean and let the water run over my bare feet. I used my Bar Mitsvah knife to cut my palm. I let my blood form a puddle in my hand, my own personal tidal pool, salt and sacrifice to be dripped, seven drops exactly, into the ocean.

I focused the will Jim and I had built during the sex we'd had earlier, the will that had helped me to come to this place of sea and rock.

I had prepared for the sex magic ceremony by first ingesting the spirit-vine tea laced with Macca, a plant Incacha had taught me was useful for improving sexual vitality. Incacha and I had brewed the tea after I'd woken up and Jim and I had made the decision to do this. Jim had raised an eyebrow when I'd handed him a gourd of Macca, but after a nod from Incacha he swallowed it. His was a very light dose, in deference to how he usually reacted to meds.

Incacha's tea tasted just as bad as it had the first time, and as expected I ended up upchucking in the bushes. Jim helped me, trickling warm water ladled from large gourds over my body. I swished my mouth out, and pleaded with my stomach to settle down. Jim and I went back to our hut and he rubbed my back till I felt the nausea leave and the trip begin.

I had asked Jim to fuck me because I wanted that physical reminder of him with me when I crossed to the spirit world. I had explained that ideally I would be brought to the brink of orgasm and then denied it, over and over, until the experience had exhausted me and I had slid into a kind of trance, held between sleep and consciousness. I would be opened to the spirit plane, especially since the ayahuasca would give me a boost. I'd be focusing my will, the element of magic that allowed change, upon finding my kin.

I'd told Jim to only let me come after I was deeply in that exhausted trance-state, my body vibrating with need so much that I'd be in an overloaded state of being. He'd bring me off and the release of energy would help me to ascend to the spirit plane that I sought.

It had been like hitching a ride on a comet.

My clinical description to Jim had been far removed from the actual experience. Jim had resorted to tying my hands to a hut pole, and I almost made our dwelling collapse around us. Alarmed, Jim had removed part of our wall and the long ends of cloth around my wrists were tied securely to trees.

He drove me out of my mind with lust, until I was begging him for completion, uncaring that everybody in listening distance could hear me.

It had all blurred for me, Jim's body, slick with sweat, on top of mine, touching me, letting me know with his mouth and hands and dick that he loved me. I adored the feel of his oiled fingers opening me up, playing with my prostrate.

I was so helpless with my cravings, my legs over his shoulders, his dick rubbing across my asshole, the sensations leaving me shaking and feeling so empty.

Jim came. Several times, in fact, while denying me the pleasure that caused him to cry out and to bite me, but taking care to not cause any real hurt.

The last time he'd entered me, I had been in such a daze, with colors drifting in front of my eyes and the world becoming hazy, and I heard the far off cry of birds. They weren't the birds of the rainforest. No, these birds had the sound of rocky cliffs in their cries, and far away, so far away, I could hear the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore.

Jim orgasmed, and I could feel the warmth spurting from his body into my own. He withdrew and bent over and kissed me, owning my mouth.

I felt my own orgasm building to incredible heights again and this time he blessedly did not stop it, he thumbed the head of my dick and I climaxed so hard I passed out.

When I came to, I could taste him on my lips as I found myself walking that rocky beach, the birds I'd heard while in my trance swooping and diving as they searched for food.

My attention was re-focused to the here-and-now as a larger wave crashed into me, wetting my jeans to the thighs. I waded further out into the ocean, until the water was past my knees, and I focused my will, my intent to know my heritage, and my longing to see my father's people. I tried once again to _shift_ but as before I only felt the pain of severing my soul. I stopped quickly, before the pain rendered me helpless.

Then I dripped seven drops of my blood from my palm into the cold gray waters surrounding me and watched as they stayed bright red, not mixing with the sea water at all. They drifted away from me towards that blur of an island until I couldn't see them any more.

I closed my eyes and waited.

 

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I was cold, and my clothes were soaked to the chest from the waves that slapped against me. Still, I kept my eyes shut, hoping, sending prayers out into the universe. I don't know how long I stayed out in the ocean, but I could feel my body shaking.

Becoming hypothermic on the spirit plane? Seriously? I tried the trick that my wolf had showed me, but apparently that only worked for my physical body. The waves started coming in higher and higher, and with each push from the ocean I staggered back a little, towards the shore.

I could take a hint and if the spirit plane didn't want me to be in the ocean, as near as I could to where I sensed the selkies' island homeland, then I'd go and camp out on shore.

I turned around and opened my eyes. I wasn't alone anymore, and I felt a wave of gratitude. Jim was there on the shore, waiting for me.

 

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Jim had built a small fire on top of a large flat rock, and I was reminded of the day we'd shared a campfire on another shore and I had made the decision to burn my seal skin. I shivered again, and not from the drenched clothing that was clinging to me. I went to him and he kissed me on the forehead, then unbuttoned my shirt, easing the sleeves down my arms.

“You're cold, Darwin. Let's get these wet clothes off you.” He finished stripping me and then gave me the sweater he was wearing, the Irish fisherman one that looked so good on him. It was loose and long on him so when I slipped it over my head it came down to the top of my thighs.

Jim spread out a blanket and sat down near enough to the fire to feel the warmth and tugged at me until I was held within his arms and legs, his body warming me as much as the flames did.

“How did you find your way here, Jim?” I'd been surprised to see him. “Did Incacha send you after me?”

“No. He told me before we started this shindig that this was your mission. Kind of a test, isn't it? A shaman thing?”

I nodded. “So how...”

“You're my guide, Sandburg. You showed me the way, and the taste of the spirit-vine tea from your lips made it easy. I just dialed up my senses and followed your trail. I'm here to watch your back, remember?”

My anchor. Jim had changed so much from the man I'd first met. That man hadn't liked himself very much. Jim had done things he'd regretted, but he'd learned to accept himself. He was happy, and it showed. Shoot, he'd even been patient enough to not get angry with me when I'd been at my prickliest, when I'd been in denial of the feelings of depression and anger that were eating away at me.

I was tired. Disappointed. There were selkies here, on that island, but they didn't want to see me. I wasn't kinfolk to them. Just another bastard child, I guessed. Nobody who had a claim upon them.

Jim tightened his arms around me, and I felt my eyes overflow. The tears rolled slowly down my cheeks and Jim caught them on his thumb. They danced there, taking on a life of their own, and he gently placed them on the rock. They tumbled away, and Jim stared at them as they found their way to the water.

“They're as blue as your eyes, Chief.”

“Don't zone, Jim, if you're tracking them in the water. The ocean is full of tears, you know. A few more won't change anything. I guess I've learned what I came here to find out. If there are selkies in the world still, they want nothing to do with me. I'm ready to go home whenever you are, Jim.”

Home to Cascade. We'd leave soon, travel the river back to Iquitos. Maybe I'd try to communicate with the pink dolphins. I'd love to find out if the stories of them were true, find out if they were really shape-shifters.

I'd resume my jobs when we returned, and I felt myself looking forward to them. And I was safe now, as were the other potential victims Alex had planned to torment. Incacha had said that Alex would be dead by the time we returned to the great city. She had been dangerous, and Incacha's actions has been justified. I had regretted that such a powerful sentinel had chosen such an evil path in life. Now, I could let go of the hate I had felt for her.

I remembered every minute I'd ever spent as a selkie, and I felt joy at what I had experienced. What was different was that I didn't feel any sorrow when I thought about never transforming again.

“Jim? When you left the Army, was it hard to adjust to being a civilian again?”

“For a while, yeah. I second guessed myself, wondered if I should have stayed in. Some things take time, Blair. I found a new direction to go in, and if I hadn't become a cop, I probably wouldn't have met you. For that alone, I'm glad I left the service. I wouldn't want to return now, although sometimes I think of my team, and yeah, I miss them. Mostly I think about what they would have done in some situation, like knowing that Sarris would have cracked up at some stupid joke, or Johnson would have given his right arm to have a car like one I'd see on the road.”

“I'm going to be okay, you know. I'm not going to be like the selkies in the old stories and pine for something I can't have for the rest of my life. I don't regret what I did, and I'd do it again, Jim. But I still want you to teach me to surf, okay? And we can leave. I gave it a shot, and it didn't pan out. I'm not going to try again.”

Jim let out a slow whistle. “Chief, I think you're about to have company.” He pointed out towards the ocean and I squinted, but I couldn't make out anything.”

“What? Jim, what's out there?”

“Looks like seals. Seven or eight of them, and they're swimming fast, just darting through the water. Watch, you'll be able to see them in a minute.”

I felt trepidation. Maybe they weren't coming to share their knowledge with me. It was more likely they were coming to warn me off.

I stood up, and Jim packed up the blanket and my wet clothes, stuffing them into a bag.

I could see them now, as they swam around in the shallow waters near the beach, heads and wide eyes above the waves.

They were selkies and I felt their curiosity about me. At least I wasn't sensing hostility.

Jim and I walked closer to the waves running up on the shore.

 _'Please,'_ I asked. Mentally, I pleaded for their help, and told them how much I wanted to learn about my father's people. How I had searched for them, and found no recent traces of their existence in my reality.

Seven gray seals rode waves high up onto the beach. The air blurred and three men and four women stood where the seals had been. Two men rolled their skins into a tight bundle and hid them behind a large rock higher up on the beach. Two of the women's had become caps that they wore on their heads, until they untied them and placed their skins on the beach, out of the reach of the waves. The rest of the selkie's skins had been reduced in size until all I could see was a strip of leather that was fastened around their neck or ankle. Just like my own selkie skin had been.

I felt such a longing to go to them, but I heeded what Incacha had told me – I might not return to my body if I became too enthralled with these selkies.

“Jim?” I felt his hand slide into mine.

“Right here with you, Chief. I won't let go.”

“Good. Because I'm leaving with you. Don't let me forget that, okay?”

Jim squeezed my hand and we walked down to the water's edge.

They circled us, seven naked, beautiful people with long hair in different colors of black, brown, red, and blond. Some had curly hair like me, but their eyes were all different colors. They didn't speak, but I felt their minds touch mine.

“Jim, are they--”

“Talking to me? Yeah, they are, in the same way you did when you rescued me from the ocean.”

I felt confused, trying to respond to all seven of the selkies who were sending thoughts of wary curiosity to me. Finally, a woman stepped closer to me, and the rest of the selkies' voiceless thoughts quieted in my head.

The selkie woman didn't speak in words, but I felt bathed in thoughts of comfort and care. She put her hands on my shoulders and drew me to her and kissed me on the forehead, then raised her hands to my face and looked intently at me.

I felt the concepts of _youngest, sadness, and acceptance_ from her, and in return I sent my own thoughts of searching and loss, and the joy I'd felt as a selkie as I swam the ocean. I also showed her my life as a man -- my work, the things I enjoyed doing, my mother, and most of all, Jim.

She and I communed for a long time, it seemed, but I always felt Jim's hand in mine.

Finally, she said, “Blair.”

Stupidly, I asked, “You can speak to me now?” and then wanted to kick myself. Of course, she could speak to me, she just did. I had theorized that telepathic communication helped a selkie to learn language quickly.

“Yes. You will help me with the words I need, if they do not come to my mind. You are Blair, and I speak for us seven. We saw it was too overwhelming for you for all of us to learn your mind. It has been long, long ago since I last spoke to a human.”

A human. Not a selkie, then. “I was once a selkie, like you. I've looked for those like me, but couldn't find any traces of my father's people. Do they still exist in the world? And what is your name?”

“You may call me... grandmother. I am eldest here. And child, we know you were once as we are. You rejected us, burned us from your existence. We held counsel once your blood reached Sanctuary and we learned you wished to speak to us. Most decided that you made your choice and must now live with it, and we would not come to you. Then your tears told us of your sorrow and your love for this one, your watchman. Your tears moved us, child, and so we agreed to come to you this once, as a boon to one who is now lost to us.”

There were so many questions I had, I hardly knew where to begin. She smiled at me, and I felt her warmth and compassion. Kindness. Selkies were a kind-hearted folk.

“My father? Is he here, and where is here anyway? I mean, obviously we are on a different plane of existence but why does it look this way?”

“We seven are the eldest now, and this is our refuge. It is a mirror of where selkies can cross into the world of men that you have come from or to other worlds. The seven of us are not alive, not as you know life. We lived long, long ago; when selkies die their souls can choose to come here, to be with the clan. Not all do so, Child of the Open Sea.”

Jim started when she called me that. It was a pet name he had for me, although he had rarely said it since I'd burned my seal skin. It was from a kid's book by Kipling, about a courageous seal.

“Is my father here?”

 

“I do not know. If so, he did not say that you were his child. If he is no longer alive, it is more likely that his soul did not choose to come to Sanctuary. Perhaps he will be re-born. Other human souls, those the sea has claimed, can choose to be selkies if they wish to be re-born, and they take that form here, at our refuge.”  
Some of the old stories told that selkies had once been humans who had drowned. The folklorist in me was gratified to hear confirmation of those old tales.

“If my father is alive, where can I find him? Can I call him to me, as I did you?”

“I do not know if any selkies still live in your world. Those who have come to Sanctuary speak of the filth that has changed the oceans, the noise that fills the depths of the seas and takes its toil until a selkie is driven away.”

God, pollution and the effects of sonar technology. I knew it interfered with whales and other denizens of the ocean. It hadn't really affected me, though.

Grandmother answered my thoughts. “You were new, Blair. It would have hurt you if you had stayed in the ocean much longer. There are doorways to other worlds, and some selkies choose to escape through them. There were never very many of us. The clan is much diminished.”

“Where is this place on the earth where doorways to new worlds open?”

“The name has changed over the many long years we have existed. I do not know what it is called now. But, youngest child, those doors are shut to you.”

She said it gently, and I felt a dull disappointment. “Because I gave up being a selkie, right?”

“Yes. I am sorry. If we make a child with a human we will come for the child when it is old enough. A child born to selkie parents will live in the ocean easily, but a human-selkie child must wait till it is older before going to the sea. Your father would have taken you, little one, if he had known where to look for you.”

“My mother moved us away from the sea, and she hid my new-born seal skin so that I would stay on land. She didn't want to lose me.”

“If she had not, you would know your father, but would have lost your mother. A selkie often knows such sorrow, Grandson.”

“Where did we come from, Grandmother?”

“I cannot speak of it in words, but open your mind to me again, Youngest, and I will show you, as I was shown.”

She took my free hand, and closed her eyes. I did also, and a barrage of images filled my head. A small village by the sea near a rocky coast. The people were fishers, men and women and children, and loved their cold ocean. Pictures of their daily lives unfolded in my mind. They were healthy, and beautiful to look upon, and happy until the night that slavers from a faraway land raided the village. These fierce men had sailed onto their shores in the dead of night and burned the people's simple boats, timed it with surrounding the village, trapping the inhabitants.

All the men and grandmothers were slaughtered, the women and boys raped, babies and toddlers slammed against stone walls to kill them. The survivors, all of an age to make good slaves, were herded down to the ocean. All but the shaman of their clan, who had feigned being dead, each raider supposing another one had killed the old woman.

I saw how the shaman made a great magic upon what had become the death place of so many of her people. She channeled that power and carried it within herself to the sea.

She was too late because the raiders had forced those left alive of her people onto the large, strange boats and had left the shore.

I felt her anguish, saw her climb high up the rocky cliff. She was brimming with power and soon it would tear her apart – humans are not meant to be such vessels – but she prayed to her sea-gods and she felt the power changing her. She called out to her people with her mind and felt them startle as they understood her. She offered them freedom from the slavers, but they would have to trust her. Those who would live free must jump into the cold sea.

She felt their confusion for it seemed as if that would be certain death. She told them wordlessly, with images and feelings, that the magic would ensure they would live.

She bade them to hurry for already the power was destroying her body, a deadly fire creeping through her veins.

With a fierce yell the first woman dove into the sea. The raiders laughed and made to lower a smaller boat to fetch her back, and with gestures promised her punishment when she was captured. She made a few feeble attempts to swim and then went under the waves.

The shaman once again promised to her people that they would live if they went into the water, that they would be safe from the slavers.

Another woman screamed that she would rather die in the sea than be anyone's slave, and jumped overboard. Soon most of the rest did, too.

When all who had followed the shaman's plea were in the ocean, she pointed her arm out to the sea and released the power.

It changed her people. Their forms shifted, and instead of human faces, the slavers saw the wide eyes of seals.

The slavers prayed to their own god and threw the remaining villagers into the sea. They sailed away and never returned to that cove, and the stories spread of the people who could shift into seals.

Those villagers who had stayed on the boat until the raiders threw them into the water did not change into seals. They were rescued by the selkies, and clinging to their clan-folks necks, the selkies swam them and themselves to shore.

When the selkies rode the waves onto the beach, their seal skins slid from their bodies. The shaman was carried down from the cliff, and all could see she was dying.

She told them the magic had marked them, that if they put on their seal skins, then they could return to the sea, in case other raiders came to take them again.

Her dying body still thrummed with power and she told them to find a boat, to put her in it and send her far away out to sea. When she died, the power would leave her and she knew it would make another great magic, and she wanted her people to be safe.

A neighboring village's men came to investigate the fires they had seen while going out at dawn to fish the ocean. The shaman was placed in a boat and they tied the tiller to her hand and fastened down the sail. The wind and sea took her far from the village, out to a rocky island, and with her boat bobbing on the shore, she died.

Her death released the rest of the power and a portal to other worlds and other planes was made upon that rocky island far from the mainland.

All the selkies felt her death, and mourned their savior as well as their dead children, elders, husbands, and brothers.

Grandmother let go of me and stopped the flow of images and feelings. She wiped the tears from my cheeks and touched my hair, then grasped my free hand again.

“Blair, the shaman's magic was born from sacrifice and death. It was a powerful working. Perhaps the shaman did not intend it, but when she willed for her people to shift to seal form, she also bonded them to the sea. All selkies feel the pull and eventually must leave the land. The villagers found this out, as the selkies stayed more and more in the ocean. A neighboring village man courted a selkie and in anger, when she showed more interest in living in the sea than becoming his wife, he hid her skin. She found she must stay with him, and do as he said, for the spell took into account that without their skins safely hid away, a selkie in human form could be taken again a slave. When other men found that this man's selkie must stay with him, no matter her tears and pleas, than they, too, watched to find where a selkie woman would hide her skin when on land.”

I remembered my own feelings of being Alex's slave, and saw Grandmother's tears slip down her face, in empathy for me. Jim squeezed my hand, hard, and I sent thoughts to her that I was free now.

“The shaman's magic was built on the blood shed by the raiders. Blood will call to us. The tears of the captured folk, still wet on their faces as they jumped into the sea ,became part of the magic, so tears also call to us. The salt of blood and tears, the salt of the ocean – this is a powerful spell as you have found out for yourself.”

She wiped the traces of tears from her face and smiled at me. “We were never many, and we learned to be wary of being trapped. You were taken twice, and I am sorry for the pain you've suffered. Are you sure your watchman was worth the loss of your birthright?”

Jim's hand tightened in mine again and he drew a little closer. “Yes. And Jim didn't mean to trap me. It's hard for people to believe in selkies these days. Anyway, I chose him. I'm glad to have experienced being a selkie, but I made the right decision.”

She let go of my hand and instead reached up and cupped Jim's face. “You will take care of our youngest, Watchman?”

“He's my guide and he's my partner and I love him. So, yeah, I will.”

“Uh...” Grandmother turned back to me. “Why didn't the shaman use the power to smite those raiders instead of helping the villagers to escape them?”

“Violence was not her way. Selkies do not hurt those who would capture us: we flee instead, if we can.”

She took my hand once more. “We must leave soon, but, youngest, dance with us first. The villagers loved music and that trait has also been passed down to their descendents.”

She pulled at my hand and I took a step away from Jim. The other selkies began to croon a beautiful tune and to dance, their steps smooth and graceful and their bodies swaying like sea-kelp.

I was passed to one partner after another and each selkie man or woman welcomed me, their earlier hesitation about accepting me gone. I thought that grandmother had given me the thumbs up, and I lost track of time as we danced, the selkies and me. And Jim. Jim never let go of me, but he moved behind me, always keeping my hand in his, his other arm circling my waist.

It began as a whisper in my head from one selkie, and then another, and another, all joining together until seven voices, beautiful and warm and welcoming, were asking me to stay with them.

I sent back mental pictures of me burning my seal skin, let them feel the fire in my soul that had essentially killed me, before Jim had brought me back. I knew I couldn't transform here, I'd already tried it.

All but one voice faded away. Grandmother danced with me and told me, mind to mind, that there was a way, if I desired it. When they put on their seal skins, and went into the ocean, swimming back to Sanctuary, I could follow them. The cold water would exhaust me and I would drown. My physical body would die, and I would resurface from the ocean as a selkie again.

“Stay with us, Blair. You were born to be a selkie, to be part of the clan,” Grandmother said, and I knew that Jim had heard her from the sharp inhalation he gave.

I felt a rush of memories from when I'd been free in the ocean, before I'd met Jim, when I was just learning who I really was.

When I'd left Jim for the ocean, sure he didn't love me anymore and afraid of being convicted of being Alex's accomplice and living the rest of my life in jail, I'd wanted to regain those carefree feelings I'd experienced on my short trips into the ocean. That hadn't happened. I had been still tied to him because I found myself unable to travel. I should have been able to swim far away. I didn't want to. And when Jim came to the beach and sent out thoughts of how he loved me and was sorry for hurting me, I found I couldn't leave. I just couldn't. But I couldn't come back to the shore, either, not until he came for me.

With hindsight, I thought my decision to leave Jim had been influenced by my fractured soul, the lost part of myself leaving me more vulnerable to seeing the worst in a situation, and not as able to think things rationally through, and man, I hadn't even consulted with a lawyer about the FBI's supposed case that pointed the finger at me being Alex's accomplice.

Jim dropped a kiss on the back of my neck and I arched back into him.

I was tempted. I was. I doubt that anybody who hasn't experienced life as a selkie would understand how enticing the call of the sea can be.

Jim's hand was in mine, Jim's arm circled my waist, and inside me, there was a pleasant ache where Jim had entered me and shared his body in the most intimate way he could.

I let go of Grandmother's hand. I smiled at her and shook my head.

The dancing slowed until every selkie, my kinfolk, stilled. Each one came and kissed me, some on the lips, some on the forehead, some on the cheek, and then they walked away, picked up their skins and carried them into the ocean.

I watched them swim away. Only grandmother remained.

“You are sure, Grandchild?” I nodded, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you, for changing your mind and coming to talk to me. I'll always treasure your words.”

She cupped my cheek, and then looked at Jim for a long moment before stepping back and turning towards the waves. She picked up her skin and ran into the sea.

I saw her blur and transform, then dive out of sight.

“Jim?”

“Yes, Child of the Open Sea?”

“Let's go home, okay? I'm ready.”

“All right, Dorothy. What do we do, since we didn't bring our ruby-red slippers?”

I laughed. I felt wrung out, elated, emotional, and a curious mixture of happiness and sorrow, especially for those long ago ancestors of mine. I probably would never meet my father. I'd never look upon his face. I wouldn't let it eat me alive, though. And I wouldn't have wanted to give up my mother.

Choices. They were tough sometimes, but we all had to make them. I'd made the right ones for me. And Jim.

I drew him down and kissed him on the mouth.

“We just say, 'There's no place like home,' Jim.”

We did. The rocky coast faded away, the sound of the ocean quieted and the sea birds cries changed into those of jungle birds. It was that easy.

I looked into Jim's hazy eyes, as we lay on our jungle bed, and I kissed him again.

“You know, it really is pretty simple.:

Jim gave a lazy grunt and rolled me on top of him. “What's simple?”

“When I'm with you, I'm home.”

“Ditto, Darwin.”

The End.

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/laurie_ky/pic/0006gx6z/)

 

Author's note. The description of ayahuasca tea was brilliantly described by Kira Salek ( and is credited to her) in [this article on her experiences with healing through shamanic ceremonies](http://www.kirasalak.com/Peru.html)


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